Cat Like Theif
by neon rose
Summary: Since meeting Kid Flash Jinx finds herself unable to steal and Kid Flash finds himself unable to stop pestering her.
1. Chapter 1

Jinx was not at the moment a happy person, in fact she was angry, angry and frustrated and it was all Kid Flash's FAULT. Telling her to give up villianry, he might as well have told her to give up breathing. Who did he think he was? Oh she'd not given it up that was for sure, no boy and certainly no hero was going to tell HER what to do. The last three big robberies in Jump were all her doing.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. Lately she'd taken only to planning out crimes, meticulously planning them mind you, but she'd not as yet been able to bring herself to commit a crime in person. She'd just been sending the boys out to commit them, her excuse was that she had bigger plans for something huge so couldn't spare the time to do the legwork herself. They'd bought it of course, the morons.

Jinx stomped angrily through the shopping centre, the whole staying at home supposedly plotting thing wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't have been for those damned roses. Every day without fail there was a rose in her room, and lately he'd taken to zooming past her on the street and leaving one on her person. And as if on cue a breeze nearly swept her off her feet and stunned passers by, she gritted her teeth and reached up to find a rose embedded in her perfectly shaped horn hairstyle. She was glad at least that Kid Flash had the forethought to cut off the thorns.

"What are you staring at?" Jinx snarled at the crowd of people that had stopped to stare at her, she stormed off.

Back in the comparative safety of her own home she began to relax. She put her feet up on the control panel and idly watched the surveillance monitors in between reading her book, one of the good things about being a mastermind and not the one doing the running around was a whole lot more time undisturbed by annoying boys.

"Nineteen Eighty Four? What's that about?" A voice asked from beside her, Jinx rolled her eyes, it seemed she'd thought too soon.

"It's a classic you moron." Jinx said rolling her eyes, apparently she'd thought too soon.

"What's it about?" Kid Flash asked pulling the book down so she had to look at him.

"It's about a stupid boy who annoys a very pretty girl and she eventually murders him." She said flatly and pointedly, unfortunately Kid Flash really didn't know what the book was about and therefore didn't get her sarcasm.

"Sounds depressing." He shrugged, Jinx groaned and buried her face in the book, suddenly she remembered something.

"Here, this is for you." Jinx said poking Kid Flash in the side with a small red book, he looked surprised and took it from her.

"You got me something?" He asked surprised, Jinx nodded and continued reading her own book. Kid Flash turned the book over in his hands and read the title aloud.

"How to rule the world: a handbook for the aspiring dictator." He looked down at Jinx with a raised eyebrow, she said nothing and simply turned a page in her book and continued reading. Exasperated Kid Flash cracked the book open and thumbed through it, the book seemed to consist of tips on how to rule the world ranging from coming to power, staying in power and keeping an eye on your enemies and was scattered with profiles of previous dictators and little quotes from people.

"'Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.' – John Lehman." He read aloud with a giggle, in the corner of his eye he saw Jinx crack a small smile.

"So, _you're_ trying to convert _me_? That makes a change." He grinned at her, Jinx seemed to be being playful for once and he didn't want to ruin the moment.

"Yes, I shall rule the world with you at my side. You can be part of my harem if you want." Jinx smirked still pretending to read her book.

"Now there's a thought." He laughed happily, and despite his previous hopes on not ruining the moment he opened his mouth again, "You're being unusually nice to me, should I be expecting some kind of trap to come falling down on me?" He asked with a small grin. The slight smile that had been playing on Jinx's lips disappeared, she glowered at him and around the corner he heard the front door open.

"We're back! And boy did we get a real haul!" Gizmo's voice shouted gleefully. Jinx looked slowly at Kid Flash, it seemed to take him a moment or two before he was able to wrench himself from her gaze and disappear in time to escape unseen. The five remaining members of the HIVE five rounded the corner to find an irritated Jinx clutching a copy of Nineteen Eighty Four that was starting to smoulder around the edges, the brighter members of the HIVE five cautiously edged away from Jinx.

"Congratulations, you managed to pull off a perfectly organised low grade robbery, you've officially reached the status of mediocre!" She spat and stormed past them.

Jinx flopped down on her bed irritated and confused as to why she was annoyed.

"He SHOULD be suspicious of me! I'm evil!" Jinx shouted to the empty room, she muttered something about 'should have turned him into Madame Rouge after all' and curled up on her bed. She couldn't be actually be hurt that he didn't trust her could she?

Half an hour later Jinx came downstairs with a sigh, the HIVE five held their breath in case she was going to shout at them but the danger seemed to pass.

"I'm going out." Jinx said simply and left.

"She's acting maighty weird." Billy noted suspiciously.

"She's a GIRL of course she's weird." Gizmo snorted snatching the TV remote off of Billy, this prompted a giant and pointless fight.

Jinx sat down at a fountain in the middle of the city and tried to unwind, just as she was beginning to manage it a yellow and red blur appeared next to her and materialized into Kid Flash.

"So, do I still get a place in your harem or am I in your bad books now?" He grinned flirtatiously.

"I suppose you might still be allowed a place." Jinx shrugged trying not to let him cheer her up, she was a villain for crying out loud, sitting at a fountain in broad daylight with a hero was wrong in so many ways! Yet despite herself she made no move to get up and leave as she knew she should.

"Do I have to be scantily clad in revealing outfits?" He asked waggling his eyebrows at her.

"I'm not sure there'd be much of a difference for you, spandex boy." Jinx said flatly, Kid Flash laughed at this.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with spandex especially on someone who's so nice to look at!" He grinned running a hand through his hair and striking a pose for her.

"There's plenty wrong with spandex, the words 'leaving little to the imagination' for a start." Jinx said rolling her eyes at him.

"So you've been looking then?" He asked suggestively whilst leaning across to her; Jinx glared at him and hexed him into the cold water of the fountain. When Kid Flash surfaced Jinx was walking away laughing.

"So that's a yes then?" He called after her.

"No!" Jinx shouted back with a laugh.

"Well is it a no?" Kid Flash shouted grinning madly, Jinx didn't reply but waved her hand causing the fountain to rupture and spray Kid Flash with yet more cold water.

Jinx continued her aimless walking feeling undeniably happy, that was one thing she'd admit, only to herself of course never to anyone else, the boy made her happy. He made her laugh for no reason at all and just thinking about him could bring a smile to her face. He was an infectiously happy person, that big grin that was always plastered on his face was a testament to that, it seemed like he had so much cheerfulness he couldn't contain it in a regular smile and so had to grin so inanely all the time. Something like that would ordinarily get on Jinx's nerves but he seemed to be an exception to that rule, she wondered if he was always that happy.

Kid Flash pulled himself out of the fountain and shook himself off like a dog and soaking those around him, he sped off to avoid the cries of annoyance and proceeded to follow Jinx from the rooftops of the buildings around her. He was pleased to see that she still had a smile on her face, the girl just didn't smile enough and he'd made it his personal mission to make her happier, she had saved his life after all. Jinx sat down on a park bench and he stopped on the rooftop he was on and sat down to watch her. Truth be told he didn't just stay around her to make her happy, he did it because she made him inexplicably happy. Not that other things didn't make him happy of course, but she just seemed to fill him with this sense of purpose and joy that he'd never known before, the girl was intoxicating to be around. He knew his random gifts of roses annoyed her somewhat but he also knew that she'd kept them all in her room secretly.

Some might accuse him of using the rose thing as a power trip, letting her know that he could get to her at any time and haul her off to jail or wherever he pleased at a whim, not to mention invading her personal space. But his motives were far more innocent than that. Time was after all, relative and when you were moving at hundreds of miles an hour everyone else moved as if trapped in time. He'd taken up people watching at high speed years ago, getting a glimpse into normal people's lives and they moved in slow motion. Normally people looked jerky and uncoordinated at slow speed but Jinx's movements were always graceful and calculated, he loved to speed by her and take in the expression on her face, her delicate catlike movements, the wind in her hair and the smell of her skin. Admittedly leaving her a rose and running off again was fun in itself when he got to hear the irritated scream when she realised what'd happened.

Two thuggish ne'er-do-wells approached Jinx where she sat happily sunning herself on the park bench and gruffly demanded her money 'or else'

"Oh push off." Jinx muttered barely opening her eyes, the thugs moved closer.

"You're in my light." Jinx pointed out threateningly, up on the rooftop Kid Flash got to his feet defensively, if they laid a hand on Jinx they'd be dead before they hit the floor, to his surprise a primal growl emerged from his parted lips.

"Give us yer money!" They demanded again, Jinx eyed them up and down. They were huge and dumb looking, not unlike mammoth.

"No. Now get out of my light." Jinx said firmly, the two looked somewhat confused, this wasn't how it was meant to go. One grabbed Jinx's shirt threateningly, one bright burst of light later the two now slightly sizzling thugs lay on the floor unconscious. Up on the rooftop Kid Flash laughed happily, Jinx could certainly take care of herself.

Jinx bent down and rifled through their pockets and pulled out a wallet each, sitting down on one unconscious thug she browsed through them, the two of them were twenty one although their IQ was probably lower than that.

"You two are old enough to know better." Jinx said shaking her head. She continued to look through their wallets, pulling out a wrapped up condom Jinx raised an eyebrow and looked at the one thug whose wallet it'd come from, she couldn't imagine him getting lucky ever, let alone the near future.

"Ever the optimist I see." She muttered putting it back. The two of their wallets were fairly disappointing, there was hardly three dollars between them, not even enough for a decent ice cream, disgustedly she tossed them on the floor and stepped over them and headed back home with her good mood gone.

After he was sure that Jinx was out of eyeshot he zoomed down and checked their wallets himself, he smiled, she'd left the money. The Jinx a few months ago wouldn't have been above stealing three dollars, he grinned like a madman and sped off to haul the two thugs to jail.

A/N: Heh I couldn't resist another Jinx/Kid Flash Fanfic, and once again this is another song named fic. It's by boxcar racer if anyone feels like listening to it.


	2. Chapter 2

Kid Flash was out of uniform for a change, he'd decided that he deserved at least an hour or so every day where he could just do what he wanted to as a normal teenager, plus the police had to do something in this city to earn their keep after all. So he'd left his uniform at home and walked, yes walked, to the mall to kill time doing normal teenage loitering. He'd eventually found himself in a bookstore without really paying attention to how he'd got there, he was fairly surprised to find himself in front of a bookshelf containing none other than the book that Jinx had been reading the day before.

"Nineteen eighty four…" He murmured and slid it off of the shelf, it didn't feel like too weighty a book, and it wasn't amazingly long either. Carefully he looked around him to see if anyone was watching and quickly checked the ceiling for cameras, taking a deep breath he decided he was safe. To a passer by it would have appeared as if the red-headed boy had just bent the cover of the book and let it go so all the pages went from one cover to the other, as if they were trying to judge how long the book was; you would have had to get really close to the boy to notice that his pupils became a blur during this time. Wally West carefully replaced the read book on the shelf and thought about what he'd just read, the story was… pretty depressing really. It niggled at him though, what message exactly was that book trying to get across? That resistance to an authority is pointless? That there's always one inch of your soul that people can never take? Was it a warning?

Feeling dumber by the second he reluctantly searched for the literary companion guides, there had to be a book somewhere that explained what he'd just read. He noted that it was right next to the self help section, it seemed that bookstores were not without a sense of irony. He plucked a volume about nineteen eighty four off of the shelf and read it at high speed, growling annoyed he grabbed another, the last one had been no help at all.

"You should really look to see who's watching you before you do that." A calm voice with a hint of a smirk in it said over the noise of high speed reading. Kid Flash's eyes widened and his head snapped up to see Jinx before him.

"I-I…" He stumbled shocked, she KNEW it was him and he didn't have his mask on!

"Oh don't look so shocked, your mask was hardly concealing was it?" Jinx said rolling her eyes, short of concealing Kid Flash's eyebrow colour, red unsurprisingly, the mask hid very little and it wasn't hard to pick out that flame of hair and athletic figure from your average Jump city citizen.

"I guess." Kid Flash admitted hiding the book behind his back hoping she hadn't noticed it.

"What were you reading anyway?" Jinx asked looking around at the large self help section next to him, she turned a devious grin on him.

"Self help? Does the infamous Kid flash need _dating_ guides?" Jinx snickered placing a hand on her hip and leaning confidently against the bookshelf next to her, she was used to having the upper hand and was enjoying using it against Kid Flash for a change.

"Wally!" Kid Flash hissed at Jinx's use of his super hero name, he could already feel his skin reddening at her teasing, he wasn't used to being in such a compromising position around a girl, let alone Jinx, he was usually supercool or he liked to think so at least.

"Not a name I'd have guessed but Wally it is." Jinx grinned stepping closer to the obviously uncomfortable Wally West.

"Though you do have something going for your civilian disguise, your hair is different." She said flicking the longish curtain of it that hung limply over one blue eye.

"It's not being attacked by high speed winds, plus have you ever tried hair gel at high speed? Anything and everything sticks to it. I'd rather not be human flypaper." Wally laughed trying to brush the abused hair out of his eyes, as he juggled the book behind his back from one hand to another to brush his hair away Jinx took the opportunity to snatch the book away from him and dance backwards away from him.

"HEY!" He yelped making a leap for it but Jinx held him back with a hand on his chest and the book in her outstretched hand behind her.

"Ah-ah! No superspeed out of uniform!" Jinx reminded him as she lifted the book above her head, Kid Flash gritted his teeth angrily.

"Give it back Jinx." He said in a strained voice, Jinx's catlike eyes sparkled mischievously.

"I will, as soon as I see what it is." She smirked turning it over to see the cover, Kid Flash winced.

"Well this _is_ interesting!" Jinx grinned at him noticing the blush spreading across the boy's cheeks like wildfire.

"Trying to get inside my head are we?" She asked waving the book at him, he stared fixedly at the floor now, even his ears were going red at this point.

"Or could you just not understand the book on your own?" Jinx teased him, Kid Flash's head snapped up at this, his face red and his eyes, Jinx could have sworn, more than a little tearful. In a blur and a bang so loud that it hurt Jinx's ears he was gone, obviously not even caring if he was seen using superspeed in civilian clothing. There was a 'shh!' from several points in the store but no other action. Jinx shoved the book back on the shelf.

"Taste of his own medicine, he's been irritating me for months, he deserves it." She muttered to herself. A vision of Kid Flash's watery eyes forced itself into her mind, she was aware she could be a little too cruel at times. She remembered him telling her that she 'didn't have to hurt people to feel good', Jinx bit her lip.

"What do I care? I'm evil!" Jinx said a little too loudly and caused another chorus of 'shh' from the people in the store. Jinx felt… guilty. She kicked a bookshelf angrily and stormed off to find Kid Flash.

Red faced, hurt and humiliated Kid Flash leant over a railing at the Jump city pier. Why was Jinx so mean to him? He buried his face in his folded arms so only his eyes remained above his arms and looked out towards the bay, he hated that he got so red when he was hurt angry or embarrassed, it took AGES to go away and right now he was a considerable amount of all three. He heard footsteps behind him and felt a presence next to him but ignored it even though he could see familiar tinges of purple and black on the edges of his vision.

"Sorry." A stiff voice said and suddenly a bunch of very bedraggled looking pink flowers filled his vision. Shocked he stood up and looked at Jinx who was holding them out to him at arms length, as if they might burn her. Carefully he took them from her and looked at them, they looked a little wilted and had obviously been ripped out of the ground not that long ago, they still had roots on them.

"Did… did you steal these from the park?" He asked after a moment.

"No!" Jinx snapped and looked away angrily.

"They still have mud on them…" he said trying not to giggle.

"FINE! If you don't want them-" She snapped letting her hands light up and reaching out to destroy them, he held them away from her protectively and jumped back.

"No! I like them!" He said desperately protecting the sad looking flowers from the raging sorceress; Jinx reluctantly lowered her hands and stared back out at the water again obviously uncomfortable with the whole situation.

"You don't do this a lot do you? The whole apologising thing?" He smiled softly, Jinx was obviously straining against every fibre of her being to do this, it was touching and just a little bit funny.

"No." Jinx said sulkily, "If people don't like me because I've said something they don't like I don't care, it's their problem. Better off without 'em, it's a sign of weakness saying sorry." Jinx grumbled well aware that her current actions were contradicting everything she'd just said. Kid Flash decided not to point out the obvious contradiction in what she'd said.

"I've never been given flowers before." He smiled at her warmly, despite herself Jinx looked surprised at this.

"But you give flowers out all the time." Jinx said incredulously, she was certain that she'd not been the first girl to be inundated with flowers from the superhero.

"Yeah, but nobody ever gives me any. I really like them." He smiled at her, Jinx shifted uncomfortably. They stood for a moment in silence with only the crashing of the waves breaking the silence between them.

"Well. Good." Jinx mumbled feeling a little happy despite herself.

"Would you be happier to just hex me and run away?" Kid Flash asked with a small smile, Jinx looked weirdly at him for this.

"Yes, but I can't just do it because you asked me to, that's just… dumb." Jinx snorted at this stupid suggestion.

"Well, if you do… just don't hex the flowers, I want to keep them." He smiled and stroked a pink petal happily.

"You can't just- it doesn't work like- God you're stupid sometimes." Jinx said rolling her eyes at him.

"So I'm told. So you need a reason to hex me and run away?" He smirked at her, Jinx felt a little better, if he was smirking at her things were a little closer to normal and less like the awkwardness and un-Jinx-ness of the current situation.

"I guess." She shrugged, a wide grin spread across Kid Flash's face which had now lost all of its red blush from earlier. In one quick movement he was against her, there was a hand on her waist and his lips were on hers! He was… kissing her!

One bright flash of pink light later Kid Flash opened his eyes and coughed up a small puff of smoke from where he lay on the floor, his clothes were scorched and a few were still smouldering and an unnerving burnt smell was coming from his hair. Thankfully his flowers lay unharmed on the floor next to him.

"Totally worth it." He said croakily as he watched Jinx running away into the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

Kid Flash waltzed through his home like a man walking on air with his flowers in one hand and an imaginary Jinx's hand in the other. He skirted around the standing lamp in his home, spinning along with his imaginary partner in a seemingly endless dance.

"M'lady." He said bowing deeply to the empty room and his invisible dance partner before wandering into the kitchen. Grabbing a vase from under the sink he ran the tap and let it fill up with cold water and dropped the flowers into it. After a moment or two of apparent thought he disappeared briefly at high speed only to return with a plant pot full of soil. He carefully made a small hole in the earth and removed the flowers from the water and put them in the pot, being extra careful to make sure that their roots were covered. Now instead of looking nice for a few days then wilting they might just take root and last forever.

"I'm in loooove!" Kid Flash sung and burst into his waltz again, there was some annoying noise in the background but it didn't matter and he paid it no mind.

"FLASH!" Robin shouted for at least the fifth time, Wally finally turned to see his communicator open and displaying a very irate looking Robin.

"Hello Robin, I'm in love!" The red head chirped happily to his friend.

"So I heard. We're not paying you to flirt with girls Kid Flash, we're paying you to look after the city!" Robin snapped, Wally pulled a face at this.

"You're not paying me at all." He pointed out.

"That's not the point. How is my city anyway? Not burnt down I hope?" Robin asked rubbing his temples, a lot of people found conversations with Kid Flash tiring, it was exhausting just looking at him with how fast he moved.

"Your damn city is fine. I've been keeping the HIVE five in check, why are they called the HIVE five when there's six of them anyway?" Kid Flash asked. Robin looked somewhat puzzled at this, as if the thought had never occurred to him before.

"I suppose… because Jinx is the leader and the others are the HIVE five? Why does that even _matter_?" Robin said shaking his head exasperatedly.

"No reason. We sent Madame Rouge packing too." Kid Flash grinned madly, remembering how relived he'd been to see Jinx when she showed up to rescue him, not that she would admit that's what she'd done.

"We?" Robin asked with a raised eyebrow, at least Kid Flash thought it was a raised eyebrow, Robin's mask moved at any rate.

"Me and the girl I'm in love with." Wally smiled broadly, his face seemed to glow at the thought.

"I don't want to know." Robin said holding his hands up, Kid Flash's face fell.

"But I love her." He pouted sadly.

"You said that the last time." Robin pointed out wearily.

"But she's different!" Wally wailed.

"You said that too."

"But I really mean it!" He pleaded, Robin shook his head and hung up.

The thought slowly crept over Kid flash that he probably should have mentioned that the girl in question was a semi-villainess who was in the 'arch enemies' folder in the Teen Titans database. He shrugged, Robin **had** said that he didn't want to know. Kid Flash happily dropped this train of through and went back to thinking about how pretty his flowers were.

Kid Flash may have been happy, but Jinx however was angry. She was filled with righteous fury and was taking it out on her now cowering team-mates, which was good and made her happy. Leaving several things in the living room smouldering she happily stomped up to her room and fell down on her bed. She hadn't been this angry in ages, it was a good cleansing anger, the kind of anger that less controlled people experienced before snapping and beating someone to death, but for her it was wonderful purifying anger that she loved.

Jinx let the anger subside and lay staring at the ceiling with a small smile on her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her room smelt of roses, it was no wonder as there had to be nearly a hundred in the room. She rolled over and stroked a silky crimson petal of one in a vase by her bedside.

"Just because I like the flowers doesn't mean I like him." Jinx said to the empty room as if someone was questioning her.

"I tolerate him at best." Jinx said trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

"Still…" She murmured touching her lips. The boy _was_ cute and he seemed to genuinely like her too. She made a note to keep him as her pet when she ruled the world, or at least Jump City.

Jinx rolled over on bed and reached for a sketchpad, one of many that she had in her room. She began to sketch what her dream supervillain outfit would be like if she ruled the world. Spandex, she reasoned, had its advantages; flexible in a fight, form fitting and not too shiny. Because goodness knows that if you're a creature of the darkness the last thing you want is a noisy shiny outfit giving away your whereabouts. But spandex was _awfully_ tacky, though having said that some people could pull it off. The image of Kid Flash's spandex clad abdomen with tone but not obnoxiously prominent abdominal muscles came unbidden into Jinx's mind.

Jinx shook her head and rid herself of the thought and hopefully of the blush she could feel spreading across her cheeks, when had she even been looking at the boy's stomach anyway? She looked down and to her horror found that she had drawn an all too familiar lightning bolt on the front of her dream uniform. She screamed in frustration and threw the pad across the room before leaping off of her bed to go take some more anger out on her team mates.

Jinx sighed exasperatedly, her team had gone into hiding, the sofa was on fire and the television was broken yet she still felt antsy and irritable. Wearily she crumpled into the computer chair by the workstation, one of the few things still left working. Idly she spun on the seat until an idea hit her.

"The Flash must surely be Kid Flash's mentor… maybe…" Jinx murmured and pulled up a window containing google, she typed in the name of the city she knew the hero frequented most of all and searched for all the high schools in the surrounding area. He probably didn't go anymore but they might have record of him if he had ever attended.

"He told me to call him Wally…" She mumbled searching through the online year books of the schools. Half an hour of searching later Jinx was considering giving up when she caught sight of a familiar burst of red hair, she scanned the face carefully, he was a lot younger in this picture but it was definitely him. Jinx smirked and suppressed a chuckle, he was about thirteen in the picture with a mess of red hair and, Jinx could hardly believe it, but _braces_ too. The smattering of freckles was more pronounced and he looked considerably awkward and self-conscious, almost certainly before he'd got his powers. She searched further, he wasn't a member of any clubs and no photo of him showed him with anyone else as opposed to the other pictures of other students which were mostly groups of friends. She felt a pang of sympathy, he was obviously a geeky and friendless kid back then.

"Wally West… is that really you under that mask?" Jinx mumbled, even without his mask on Kid Flash seemed confident and bubbly. But then again, Jinx reasoned, if you could think faster than anyone else you'd never be short of a smart comeback or short of time to think over the situation; the number of times Jinx had thought of a perfect comeback to something too late was beyond counting, living your whole life fast enough so that never happened had to give you a sense of confidence. That and knowing that whatever you said no one could catch you, and the self assurance that came with the knowledge that you could do anything to anyone before they had time to react would certainly boost anyone's confidence. She was fairly sure that anyone that had picked on Kid Flash before he was Kid Flash found themselves suddenly and inexplicably wearing just their underwear a few times in public at the least, she wondered if he still did that kind of thing now.

Jinx couldn't help but wonder if that awkward boy was still in there somewhere under all the garish red and yellow spandex. Was the Wally that she'd met briefly under the mask a mask as well? When he was alone was he still the vulnerable geeky kid with no friends? Despite herself Jinx really wanted to find out.

Later Jinx convinced herself that she'd gone to the beach at sunset in her bikini to calm her mind as opposed to hoping Kid Flash would run by and stop, after all it was Kid Flash and it was HER in a BIKINI of all things. She'd been lying down with her eyes closed on the empty beach when she heard the loud clang.

"OW!" Kid Flash yelled holding the side of his head and reaching out for support from the bent lamppost.

"Not looking where you were going?" Jinx asked tilting her head back so she could see him, he was almost upside down from her view, he was clutching his head in pain and the lamp post held an imprint of his form now.

"Apparently so. Oh that really hurt." He said stumbling towards her and rubbing what would likely be a big bruise on his forehead.

"What _were_ you looking at then?" Jinx asked with a smirk, she was perfectly aware of how much skin she was exposing and the flattering way that she was sprawled on the beach and the shamelessly bare exposed neck as she looked at him upside down.

"Uh…" Kid Flash trailed off staring down at Jinx's body, her bare legs seemed to go on forever. He'd previously thought that curvy girls did it for him but Jinx was just lithe muscle and bone, she had the body of a ballet dancer or a figure skater and it captivated him so.

"I'm up here." Jinx smirked at him and pointed to her face, Kid Flash turned red and sat down next to her and pointedly stared out at the sun that nearing setting.

"Not exactly sunbathing conditions." Kid Flash pointed out, they were in fact the only people on the beach.

"I like it when it's quiet, that and I burn easily." Jinx grimaced remembering the last time she'd gotten sunburnt, she'd not been a pleasant person to be around that week.

"You don't have to tell me, I am the king of sunburn." Kid Flash smirked risking a look at Jinx.

"You're not grey." Jinx pointed out flatly.

"No, I'm Celtic white, have you ever seen what happens to people with skin like mine in the sun? The Irish do not traditionally cope amazingly well in sunshine." He laughed and leant back with Jinx, he propped himself up on his elbows.

"You're Irish? You don't sound it." Jinx blinked.

"Descended from at least." Kid Flash shrugged.

"You're full of interesting information." Jinx smiled catlike at him.

"You're being suspiciously nice." Kid Flash said bluntly, Jinx smirked.

"Maybe I'm reforming and this is me trying to be good, but if you're going to shun my attempts…" Jinx trailed off, Kid Flash looked horrified at this.

"Ah! No no, I take it back, I take it back!" he yelped waving his hands frantically.

"Prove it then, go away and come back dressed like a normal person. I shouldn't really be having long conversations on a sunset beach with a hero now should I?" Jinx pointed out, a thought crept across Kid Flash's mind.

"Why Jinx, are you asking me to take my clothes off for you?" He asked mock seductively, Jinx's eyes glowed threateningly at this.

"Joking! Joking!" Kid Flash said quickly and disappeared in, well, a flash. Jinx waited about five minutes until a red-headed boy wearing long swimming trunks, red and yellow of course, and carrying a towel and a bottle in hand sat down next to her on the beach, she supposed that he'd had to walk like a normal person from his flat to get to her. It couldn't be that far away, she filed that nugget of information away in her mind for later use.

"Is that suntan lotion?" Jinx asked disbelievingly looking at the bottle that he was opening.

"I said I burn didn't I?" Kid Flash, or rather Wally West said poking his tongue out at her.

"It's nearly sunset!" she said frustratedly.

"Psh, if I don't do this I'll be covered in horrible freckles all over come tomorrow morning, sunset or otherwise." Wally pouted and rubbed the white oily lotion onto a pale arm.

"Heh, weirdo." Jinx chuckled and looked back out at the ocean, she yelped when a wet and cold liquid hit her back. Her vision snapped around to Wally mischievously holding the bottle in her direction, she could feel the cold lotion dribbling down her back, he had squirted it at her!

"Clumsy me." He grinned at her.

"Urgh, Wally." Jinx grumbled trying to reach the spot on her back to rub it off.

"Well, I'd best rub it in, otherwise you'll end up with a discoloured patch on your lovely back." He volunteered and zipped around behind her and in a split second his hands were on her back rubbing.

"This is just a ploy to feel me up isn't it?" Jinx muttered as warm hands rubbed her shoulder blades slowly.

"Mmm." Wally nodded in agreement.

"The only reason you ever see men doing this is so they can touch girls, it's the same with men claiming they can give great massages. It's all just a shallow ploy." Jinx declared as Wally's hands moved lower to her ribs.

"Yes, it's all a big conspiracy. They hand leaflets out in the boys bathrooms the moment we hit puberty, you've discovered our evil scheme." His voice said, Jinx could just hear the eye rolling that accompanied that statement.

"I knew it." She smiled unguardedly knowing he couldn't see it.

"And I'll have you know I give great massages." Wally added.

"So you're in on it t- ohhhh." Jinx trailed off as the power of speech failed her. His hands were moving fast over her back, too fast for a normal person. She could feel herself melting under his touch, his hands slid to her lower back and the tense muscles that lay that and let his thumbs vibrate through the tightness in the muscles. Kid Flash smirked as Jinx slumped forward and hugged her knees as her muscles turned to putty under his touch. After a while when there were no more muscles to soothe he stopped, Jinx whimpered and started to keel over to one side, he stopped her with a knee.

"Told you." He said triumphantly, Jinx merely mumbled some deep and needy sounds from the bottom of her lungs.

"That was… just… mmm." Jinx said as the power of speech slowly came back to her, she'd never noticed her back really hurting but now it felt so free and relaxed and painless.

"You're welcome." The red-head smiled at her and shuffled back to the side of her and stared at the sun that was just starting to set.

"You are full of surprises Wally West." Jinx said watching him, the boy's head snapped around and stared at her and if it was possible he went even paler.

"How-" He stammered shocked.

"Internet, it wasn't that hard." Jinx shrugged, the boy looked somewhere near terrified.

"I really should have passed this information onto every bad guy I know, not to mention how handsomely the brotherhood of evil would pay for that kind of knowledge. But… I…" Jinx said carefully.

"Didn't?" He offered helpfully and hopefully.

"Your secret is safe with me, though god only knows why." Jinx muttered bitterly at the strange control the teen had over her.

"Because you're a good-" Wally began earnestly but Jinx cut him off.

"Don't, or you'll regret it." Jinx said holding up a hand to him.

"Or you'll what? You're a good person Jinx." Wally said defiantly.

"You look much better without the braces and the geeky clothes. I've seen _every_ yearbook picture of you Wally." Jinx said poking the mortified looking boy in the chest.

"Oh god. Even the one where…" He breathed horrified realising the terrible implications of this filled his mind, he mentally flicked through the horrible photos he knew were in that book.

"Even the one where you sneezed when they took the picture, yes, very flattering." Jinx smirked, Wally cringed and buried his face in his hands in shame.

"Oh come on, geeky boy becomes handsome superhero, it's every nerd's dream." She said rolling her eyes and starting to feel bad for him.

"I'm so mortified I don't even care that you just compli- you think I'm handsome?" Wally said suddenly realising what he was saying and what she'd said.

"I didn't mean-" Jinx said hurriedly and turned an interesting shade of pink.

"Oh no no, you DID mean. So you think I'm handsome eh? What else do you think of me?" He grinned predatorily and advanced on Jinx, she tried to scramble backwards and was only stopped when Wally's hand caught her there and vibrated his fingers into sore spots around the back of her ribs.

"I- ah!" She squirmed at the touch that felt so good.

"Come on, tell me. What else do you secretly like about me then?" He quizzed her and slid his hand upwards to her stiff shoulders that had previously been untouched.

"You… blue… eyes… nice." Jinx choked out, Kid Flash grinned at this and let her go.

"That was incredibly unethical." Jinx grumbled from where she lay like a ragdoll on the sand.

"You're probably right, but I wouldn't do it if you told me these things without me having to practically torture you." He smirked and lay down next to her.

"So you really think I'm handsome and have nice eyes then?" He grinned happily at her, Jinx rolled her eyes, made a rude hand gesture and stalked off back through Jump city.

"My my, I managed to escape that unhexed, she must be starting to like me." Kid Flash grinned to himself and watched her walk off into the distance.

A/N: I hope you all enjoy the longer chapter this time, I'm already working on the next, so it won't be too long!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: thanks so much to everyone who reviews, it really does make my day, so please keep it up!

Kid Flash spun through his flat with the standing lamp in his arms, even though it had been several days since he'd seen Jinx he still felt blissfully happy that she seemed to be taking to him a little more, and on top of that his flowers had survived. He would have seen Jinx sooner but Robin needed some help doing detective work for this whole brotherhood of evil thing, or as he called it 'detectoring', purely because the made up word drove Robin up the wall. Sadly he dropped the lamp, it wasn't right. He wanted to be dancing with Jinx, to have her pressed against him as they danced. He supposed that if she'd not hexed him on the beach she might not if he tried to dance with her, with a devilish grin he sped off.

Jinx had decided that she was hungry and that a decent pasta meal would just hit the spot, so she'd resolved to leave her room for a change, she'd been almost exclusively in there the past few days, and head for the kitchen. Just as Jinx stepped out into the hallway she was knocked off of her feet, when she came to her senses she found Kid Flash spinning her around in some silly dance.

"Get OFF of me!" She snapped shoving him back, the boy looked momentarily surprised before grinning at her broadly.

"Aww, I'm sorry. It was just no fun dancing around my flat imagining you dancing so I had to come here and experience the real thing." He said in a sing-song voice and spun in a little dance with an imaginary partner.

"Just how long have you been standing out here waiting for me?" Jinx asked incredulously.

"A fair while actually, come on dance with me." Kid Flash whined and pulled Jinx flush against him and grabbed her hand and swung her unwillingly into the dance again.

"Get off of me!" Jinx said stamping her feet in an effort to remain still, Kid Flash was so like an impatient child at moments like this, just running with the silliest little whim that crossed his mind, she wouldn't have minded but lately these silly whims seemed to involve her.

"Oh I get it, you just don't know how to dance do you? Here." Kid Flash said swiftly picking Jinx up off the floor and carrying her as he spun in his own little dance circles. Jinx was momentarily speechless, how could the boy be so dim and rash? No one else would ever DARE do such a thing to her, it was so unthinkable Jinx almost didn't know how to react, this matter wasn't helped by the fact that Kid Flash had erased the height difference between them and they were now nose to nose.

"See, it's not so bad is it?" He said quietly, taking her silence to mean acceptance of the situation. He carefully watched Jinx's expressions as she desperately tried to come up with something to say, he enjoyed throwing her off balance so much.

"Haven't I hexed you enough for you to get the idea?" Jinx scowled but, Kid Flash noted happily, didn't struggle or try and squirm out of his grip.

"Apparently not." Kid Flash replied simply and pressed his nose to her feeling the temptation to kiss her rise again. Their last kiss had been so quick he's barely registered it, he remembered the softness of her lips though, that part of the memory was probably burned into his brain forever now.

"I'll hex you." Jinx said weakly, it was impossible to glower at someone whose face was so close to yours that you had to go cross-eyed to see them properly.

"If you hex me again do I get to kiss you again?" he asked in a serious voice that Jinx had never heard from him before.

"Put me down." Jinx said firmly, Kid Flash obeyed and gently Jinx's thick soled boots touched the floor but Kid Flash still kept his arms around her. Jinx's brain didn't seem to be working properly and the only thing she could come up with to say was-

"You're so warm." Jinx murmured and noticed she'd pressed her hand against his stomach.

"Fast metabolism, I burn up a lot of heat. Oh wow, your hands are really cold." Kid Flash said letting his eyes slide closed, sometimes his muscles and metabolism just made him burn up so much and Jinx's cold hands were such a relief from that. He felt her take her hand back, he opened his eyes again.

"I have terrible circulation, the only time my hands get warm is when I'm hexing something." Jinx muttered clenching her hands into a fist and looking away unusually self-conscious.

"Cold is good." Kid Flash said pressing her hand against his face, Jinx looked surprised and unfurled her icy fingers against the boy's hot skin, a small needy sound from the back of Kid Flash's throat escaped his mouth and did funny things to Jinx's stomach.

"You know what they say, cold hands warm heart." Kid Flash smiled into Jinx's wrist, Jinx snorted disbelievingly. She moved her hand to another patch of skin, her fingertips against his temples and her palm against his cheek, he practically purred in happiness. Thoughts that Kid Flash knew he really shouldn't be having came into his head, if her cold hands felt this good against his skin, how cold was she everywhere else and how good would _that_ feel.

"You know if I hex you against your temples, you'll be unconscious before you could move away." Jinx threatened him, he half opened one eye in response.

"I suppose, but I don't think you'd do it. It could really hurt me and you're not so bad a person that you'd do that to me." Kid Flash said and nuzzled his face into her wrist. Jinx glowered, his self assured nature about what she would and wouldn't do was infuriating and all the more so for the fact that he was probably right.

"Where the hell does this trust and faith in me come from? I've done nothing to earn it!" Jinx snapped.

"You saved me from Madame Rouge, you know my name and me and my family are still fine, you've seen me unmasked too. That and you've had your hand against my head for more than enough time to hex me and you haven't. And you're better than all of this." He said watching Jinx shift uncomfortably.

"I'm not- I'm _evil_ for goodness sake flash, you can't keep doing this!" Jinx insisted desperately, she could feel the stability that her life was built on shifting under her feet.

"I'm not doing anything, I'm just telling you what you already know." Kid Flash sighed.

"I'm evil." Jinx said weakly.

"You're not, you're a good person." Kid Flash told her and pulled her towards him, he kissed her forehead and held her close, he noted not nice her hair smelt.

"Give it up Jinx. Leave the HIVE, you're better than this." He whispered into her hair, Jinx's shoulders were shaking. In a whoosh of cold displaced air he was gone and left Jinx alone with her doubts, suddenly all her pasta related cravings were gone.

Nevertheless Jinx made her way downstairs, her feet feeling like lead. She dragged herself onto a barstool type chair and slumped over the counter top. There was no reaction at all from her team mates, Mammoth was even raiding the fridge near her and took no notice of her once he'd assessed that his life wasn't in immediate danger. Jinx sighed pointedly and dejectedly, no one made any move to suggest they'd noticed this, irritated she sighed again loudly.

"You got a cold or something? I'm trying to watch TV here." Gizmo demanded after several more exaggerated sighs from their leader.

"Doesn't it bother you that something is obviously on my mind?" Jinx snapped at him, the boy ignored her and she was sure she heard a mutter of 'PMS' among the boys. Jinx stood up annoyed and poked Gizmo on the head.

"You're it." She said simply and retreated to her room, she thoughtlessly shoved a few things into a duffel bag and jumped out of the window, she landed catlike on the floor and set off to wander the city.

She was stood in front of a travel agent's window staring at exotic places when a tell tale breeze blew past her and she felt a presence at her side.

"Going away?" He asked curiously. Jinx shrugged.

"You know I could take you to any of those places for free, and in just seconds too." Kid Flash offered her, Jinx felt numb and said nothing.

"You've already packed your bag without having booked anything?" He asked curiously and a little tired of Jinx's silence, Jinx continued to not say anything so he snatched the bag from her and rummaged through it, Jinx barely moved.

"Sketchbooks, jewellery, a snow globe, a couple of books, aww one of my roses and like… two pairs of clothes. Where the heck are you going to need this kind of stuff?" Kid Flash asked Jinx who was staring blankly ahead.

"Doesn't it bother you that I'm going through all your personal possessions… including your underwear?" He prompted. He realised that she was shaking a little and her lips were moving ever so slightly, he leant closer and realised that she was whispering something.

"…left…" She barely breathed.

"Left what?" Kid Flash blinked confused, in one swift movement Jinx threw him against the nearby brick wall with surprising strength and speed. He was so shocked he couldn't even react and stop himself from crashing into the wall painfully. He looked up to see Jinx advancing towards him with her eyes and hands aglow and a terrifying primal scream emerging from her lips. Kid Flash yelped and dodged a blast that melted the brickwork behind him, Jinx chased him with shocking speed and obliviated objects that just milliseconds ago would have been him. Eventually Jinx crumpled to her knees, Kid Flash was warily at her side in a flash, she was paler than he'd ever seen her and she seemed to be struggling to breathe.

"Jinx! Come on, breathe!" He urged her, the girl's mouth open and shut like a goldfish but she wasn't breathing. He could feel her heart racing through his hand on her back.

"JINX! BREATHE!" He shouted at her and thumped her on her back hoping to jar her lungs into working again. Pale as death Jinx keeled over into unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Sorry I've been away for so long guys, I had to go all the way to America to see my brother and my little baby niece and none of the hotels that we stayed in had any internet ;; So here we go, a long chapter just to make up for it, enjoy!

Kid Flash or rather Wally West stood nervously in the ER department of the hospital nervously, hospitals made him nervous at any rate, it was a place where one's superpower and thus secret identity could be discovered all too easily as one was not only around educated people but around educated people who were looking for things wrong or abnormal with you. He was surprised to learn that it was worse when it was someone else you cared about was in trouble, he felt a pang of sympathy for his aunt Iris who he frequently seemed to put through troubles like this.

"So tell me again what happened kid?" The nurse asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"She was mad at me, I think her… family, just kicked her out. And she went nuts and started attacking me then fell over unable to breathe and just… passed out." Wally said nervously, the nurse eyed him disbelievingly.

"You DO realise who this is dontcha kid? She's a villain, she'll attack anyone for no reason. It's probably just karma just catching up to her." The nurse said looking disdainfully at the unconscious pink haired girl at her side.

"She- it's not like that with me. We're friends. She wouldn't just attack me like that, couldn't it have been some kind of, I don't know, panic attack or seizure something?" Wally said desperately.

"Trust me sweetie, girls like this, they're bad to the bone and a nice boy like you would do well to stay away from girls like her." She said eyeing Jinx over like a piece of meat. Wally turned to look closer at Jinx, she was out cold and her breathing was shallow, her hair was still roughly in its horn shape but ruffled and bedraggled and she was worryingly more pale than usual.

"There are no girls like her; she's all I care about. It's strange to say it, a month ago I wouldn't have believed it either but… she's… enchanting." Wally stroked Jinx's face and continued, "She's not evil, she's not really even bad just mostly… misunderstood and a little mean at times. But she's just so perfect, if the hand of god himself were to come down and make a woman just for me… it'd be her. So no, I'm not going to stay away from her, so get her better so I can take her out of here." He said defiantly looking at the nurse, he wasn't going to have people talking about Jinx like that anymore.

The nurse shook her head sadly and left Wally alone with the unconscious Jinx in the small curtained off area that was theirs for the moment.

"You'd probably throttle me if you were awake and heard me say that wouldn't you Jinxie?" Wally smiled gently as he pulled up a chair and rested his face on her bedside, he was also aware that if Jinx ever heard him call her Jinxie she'd kill him too. The smile faded a little, Jinx could be seriously ill and he had no idea why. The idea that the HIVE five might have had something to do with it, hurting her even, made his blood boil with a rage and fire that he'd never felt before, it scared him more than just a little.

"What happened to you Jinx? Did they really kick you out? Was that what you meant by 'left', what happened to you Jinx? Please be okay, please?" He begged flopping his head down onto the bed hopelessly.

It was some time later, it felt like night to Jinx, that she woke up. A familiar redhead was resting on her bed and when Jinx tilted her head she saw that his eyes were closed and he was asleep, at her bedside, in a hospital.

"How horribly clichéd." Jinx muttered pulling herself out from between the sheets and shoving her feet in her boots at the side of her bed. She picked up the chart at the end of her bed and glanced over it, it read 'panic attack'. She snorted at this and rolled her eyes. As if. She glanced around, leaving Kid Flash with the medical bill should be at least a step to repaying her for all the trouble he'd put her through, she stepped over towards the curtain and slid it open carefully.

"You'd really leave without me?" A voice asked from behind her, she turned to see Wally looking at her from beneath thick red lashes.

"Maybe." Jinx said folding her arms and mentally kicking herself for not instantly saying 'yes'.

"That's a shame." He said quietly and rested his head back on the bed with a weary sigh, his piercing eyes were still watching Jinx though.

"Well, I'll be going then." Jinx said in what she hoped was a haughty voice and stayed stationary.

"I suppose you will." He said blankly and closed his eyes. Jinx shifted, this wasn't right, Kid Flash was fun and energetic and right now he looked tired and world weary, most of all though he wasn't pestering her and she felt for the first time that if she were to leave now that he _wouldn't_ do anything.

"Are you… tired or something?" She asked lamely remembering when Madame Rouge had run him to the point of collapse before, but she couldn't imagine how much energy he could have reasonably spent in that chair asleep next to her.

"A bit." He replied simply the obvious witticism like 'chairs aren't my favourite to sleep in' or something else like a cheesy pick up missing from his words.

"So… come on, I'm not good at this stuff." Jinx said huffily looking away and shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"What stuff?" Kid Flash asked face down on the mattress now.

"This whole… talking thing, trying to find out what's up with you thing." She muttered stepping back towards the bed in defeat.

"I believe they call it caring for people, and yes, it's fucking exhausting." He said his head snapping up, Jinx was somewhat taken aback by this.

"My my, I thought you were too much of a good boy to be swearing, I must be a bad influence on you." Jinx said her features relaxing slightly.

"Yeah well… I'm just exhausted. I had no idea what was wrong with you, I didn't know if you'd had some sort of stroke or seizure or god knows what when you freaked out on me, I was terrified and you don't even give a damn." Kid Flash said with his face in his hands, he didn't know what was coming over him, sure he liked Jinx but now he felt so angry and scared and hurt and… just so many confusing emotions that seemed to be coming from nowhere and for no reason. Was this the supposed hurt that came with love?

A strange sensation juddered through his ear right where the lightning bolts on his costume would have been had he been wearing it, he realised slowly that Jinx had flicked him in the ear, he lifted his head confused.

"I'm meant to be the serious one remember?" Jinx said a bright smile spreading across her face, Kid Flash felt awed, he'd never really seen her smile properly before.

"You… have a beautiful smile." He said in barely a whisper, Jinx suppressed it at this.

"Don't." She said flatly and looked away uncomfortably.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened?" Kid Flash asked, Jinx remained silent so he carried on, "I believe it's meant to go like this, you have a terrifying freak out, assault me, you pass out, I take you to a hospital, wait lovingly at your bedside, you wake up, tell me what happened and shower me with affection. Sound good?" he said flashing her a smile.

He grinned at Jinx, Jinx proceeded to look uncomfortable.

"It's all your damn fault anyway, you're a bad influence. Your impulsiveness is rubbing off on me." Jinx pouted turning her head away from him, the impulsive part of Kid Flash's brain noticed how Jinx's slender neck looked when she was looking away and urged him to bite it to see what she'd do. He ignored it, just.

"My fault? Do tell." He smiled catlike at her.

"I may have, kind of… left the HIVE five." Jinx muttered squeezing her eyes shut, to her surprise Flash didn't say anything for a while.

"I'm being restrained." He said at her pointed look towards him.

"Well done." Jinx said sarcastically unknowing to the fact that Kid flash could have easily jumped up and smothered her with kisses then and there.

"What made you do it then?" He asked earnestly.

"I don't even KNOW that's the thing, they probably haven't even caught on yet I could go back…" Jinx trailed off hopefully, she sighed.

"Who am I kidding? I can't go back." She said sounding depressed.

"You think they'll have noticed?" Kid Flash asked picking at the bedcovers and feeling sad that she'd consider going back, he felt like his hopes of her turning to good had been raised then suddenly dashed.

"No, they probably won't notice until the food in the fridge runs out and no one puts out the fires they start. No I'm just not the sort to go back on decisions like that, though I'll be damned if I know why I did it." Jinx said reaching up and taking what little of her hair remained in horns out of them.

"You know, these might look cool but they don't half make your scalp hurt. I guess that'll be an upside of going away, I won't have to wear them." Jinx said thoughtfully and massaged her scalp.

"Where are you going?" He asked her in barely a whisper, 'Jinx is leaving' his brain repeated over and over.

"Oh I don't know, anywhere but the HIVE five, they'll throw a fit when they realise I'm not there, morons." Jinx muttered bitterly.

"Stay with me!" He blurted out turning beet red.

"Why?" Jinx asked eyeing him suspiciously.

"Because I KNEW you could be good, and this proves my point and I just don't want anything to happen to you if the HIVE five catch up to you, please." He begged her.

"No way, with your powers you could do god knows what to me without me being able to do a damn thing about it. I know what boys are like remember I lived with five… at least five of them remember?" Jinx said shaking her head at Billy Neumerous' ability to reproduce himself.

Kid Flash's eyes widened in shock and horror.

"I would never! I'm not like- wait, did THEY ever- I- I'll kill them, prison is too good for them I'll just liquidise them from the inside out!" Kid Flash snarled seeing red.

"Whoa, no. They never. Not with how much pain I inflict on them on a regular basis." Jinx said waving her hands hurriedly to stop the torrent of unexpected rage coming from Kid Flash, he seemed to relax at this.

"Still, I would never. I'm a good guy, I'm hurt you'd think something like that of me." He said a little genuine hurt evident in his exaggerated act of sniffing and pouting.

"Hey, I'm just saying that they wouldn't call you the fastest boy alive for nothing." Jinx shrugged trying not to laugh at the look on Kid Flash's face as he worked out what Jinx was getting at.

"I- HEY! Are you making a crack about my stamina?!" Kid Flash yelped, Jinx grinned predatorily at this.

"I would never." She smirked at him.

"You're… you're a meanie." He said waving a finger at her lamely and turning his back on her sulkily.

"I see the bad language has failed you, used up your quota did you?" Jinx prodded him in the back which, to her delight made him squeak in an amusing way. She poked him again.

"Stop that!" He squealed shuffling out of her reach.

"You're no fun." Jinx shrugged and teased her hair back into a normal shape with her fingertips.

"Stay with me." Kid flash persisted.

"No, where are you staying anyway? The tower?" Jinx asked trying to pretend she wasn't curious, the bit of memory filed in the back of her brain reminded her that the tower wasn't five minutes walk from the beach as she'd estimated that was about as far away as he must have lived before.

"No… I have an apartment, the league has places all over the country for heroes to crash in. You can stay in the tower though if you want." He offered hopefully, granted it wouldn't be as good as having Jinx at his own place but it'd do.

"Nah, the tower's not that great." Jinx said thoughtfully.

"I- wait, how do you know what the tower's like? I thought Robin didn't DO house arrests on bad guys." Kid Flash mused remembering the exceedingly long list of rules he'd given Kid Flash when he thought he'd be staying in the tower, now it was just an incredibly long list.

"Eh, we broke in once and kicked the Titans out, we stayed there for a while until they managed to beat us somehow. The incompetency of my team no doubt, even if Robin does fight like a girl sometimes. Heh, you should see what happens to Cyborg when you turn on one of those giant magnets they have in scrap yards." Jinx grinned broadly, despite his best efforts Kid Flash burst out laughing, he could just see Cyborg stuck to the ceiling arms and legs flailing.

"But it could be fun I suppose, it'd piss the Titans off no doubt." Jinx said her mind filling with the angry faces of the Teen Titans, she giggled a little.

"Uh-uh, if you're good now the idea is not to piss them off." Kid Flash said waving a finger reproachfully at Jinx.

"Who said I was good?" She said coldly narrowing her eyes at him.

"I just assumed what with you leaving the HIVE…" he trailed off feeling his hopes dashed again.

"I'm not good." Jinx said firmly.

"That's crap, you've not committed a crime in AGES." Kid Flash pointed out, Jinx looked upset at this, almost like Kid Flash had looked after her crack at his stamina.

"I've masterminded them!" She pointed out indignantly.

"They were mediocre at best, I was the ones stopping them remember?" Kid Flash snorted rolling his eyes at the memory of how bad some of those schemes were.

"I'm just… off my game a little lately, doesn't mean I'm good." Jinx said quietly, Kid Flash stayed silent at this knowing that Jinx knew the answer.

"God damn you Kid Flash." Jinx muttered with her face in her hands, he'd actually done it, he'd turned her the one and only JINX into a good girl. It was unthinkable! To make it even worse Kid Flash _knew_ that he had done it, she looked up and caught him doing a little victory dance at her expence.

"Come on then, I'm taking you to the tower!" He chirped excitedly, "I'll give you a ride!" He proclaimed pointing to himself. Jinx's eyes widened, he couldn't mean on HIM could he?

"No way." She said firmly and crossed her arms in defiance. Kid Flash grinned mysteriously at her and had whipped her off of the bed and onto his back before she could even yelp, he ducked her swipe at his head and sped off towards the Titans tower.


	6. Chapter 6

Kid Flash couldn't help himself, he just had to stare; Jinx was walking around the Titans Tower barefoot. He'd accidentally ripped her purple and black striped stockings on the way over, the fact that he now knew that Jinx wore _stockings_ as opposed to stripy tights as he'd previously assumed filled his mind with interesting mental images as it was. So she'd excused herself and returned barefoot and barelegged, and his eyes were most definitely glued to her. She was exceedingly pale, but then again so was he; her legs were lithe muscle but equally toned and shapely, her ankles were skinny and dainty and even her perfect little toenails were alternately painted in her purple and black colour theme.

Thankfully Jinx had yet to notice his latest fascination with her which probably largely counted for the fact that he was still alive and well, she was padding around examining the newer security system. Granted he'd seen her legs bare before when they were at the beach but then there was much more exposed skin for him to ogle.

"What are the Titans going to say when they find out I'm here?" Jinx asked suddenly turning around and making her dress swish against her bare thighs, in a massive effort Kid Flash wrenched his eyes upward.

"I'll deal with them, don't you worry." He said reassuringly. Jinx watched him silently for a moment as if considering how best to phrase her next question, he shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny, this was obviously the clue she'd been waiting for as she spoke again after this.

"You've not told them about me at all have you?" She said fixing him what Kid Flash had now started to refer to as 'the look' not entirely threatening, not entirely angry or anything like that, just a solid and almost tangible in it's force look, it was the kind that made your brain try and escape out of the back of your skull to avoid it.

"Not as such… I've told Robin that I met a very lovely girl who helped me escape Madame Rouge." He smiled charmingly and intentionally left out the part where he'd repeatedly claimed to Robin that he loved her.

"To be fair… considering as he's the ex-sidekick of the world's greatest detective he really should have asked so he's not really got any excuse to be surprised. He didn't even ask me your name." Kid Flash mused.

"Probably not how he'll see it." Jinx said rolling her eyes, she knew that if one of the HIVE boys had kept something like that from her as leader she'd have gone ballistic and she had no doubt Robin would do the same. Kid Flash shrugged at this as if the idea didn't bother him at all, Jinx sagged at this and flopped onto the step behind her.

"This isn't going to work Flash, we're just… Kidding ourselves. I could never be a hero and even if I really wanted to the Titans would never let me." Jinx sighed resting her head in her hands, Kid Flash was at her side in a second with a reassuring smile plastered onto his face.

"Don't worry I already know what Robin's going to say." He smiled wrapping an arm around her, Jinx could feel the tension in his arm and the action was obviously done warily with him willing to rip his arm back at any moment should she decide to hex him, this made her just sigh deeper.

"What's he going to say?" She asked him tiredly.

"He'll say no." Kid Flash said simply and rubbed Jinx's back soothingly.

"Why on earth are you so happy then?" Jinx gawped at him and ignored the ministrations of his hand rubbing calming circles on her back.

"Because deciding if a new Titan is to join is a democratic thing if two Titans disagree. Starfire will trust you if she sees you want to change and, well, Beast Boy let Terra in so that's plain sailing there and Cyborg is usually up for giving people a second chance, so you're all set!" Kid Flash grinned at her, Jinx thought about this for a moment.

"Cyborg probably won't… he went undercover at the HIVE academy and tricked me, he'll probably think I'm trying to get my own back." Jinx said slowly.

"Don't worry about it." He grinned standing up and folding his arms behind his head and looking far more confident about this on the outside than he felt on the inside. Mercifully his Titans communicator beeped to inform him of a crime downtown.

"Crime calls, gotta run." He grinned and disappeared in a gust of air.

Kid Flash looked out at the water dejectedly. He'd not even considered what'd happen if the Titans were to reject Jinx, would they turf her out onto the street or would they hand her over to the police? And what would happen to him? Sure it would be okay if they accepted her and annulled her crimes in exchange for service in the Titans but otherwise he was sheltering a criminal, inviting one into the tower and aiding her in evading arrest, and not arresting her for masterminding crimes. All of those were more than enough to get him kicked out from the Titans and if that happened any chance of him replacing Barry Allan as the Flash were scuppered.

He buried his face in his hands and knotted his fingers in his hair, he'd never even considered any of this, but of course he hadn't had he? He was impulsive and emotionally driven, he'd seen Jinx, wanted her, she'd needed his help and guidance and he'd given it. It had just been that simple for him, no debate, no thinking, no consequences. But now there were consequences, what would he do if the Titans were to reject her? Would he quit the Titans and be by her side as a heroic duo but always dodging cops and Titans alike? Could he even do that? Should he? Jinx had risked all for him, it'd be selfish for him not to be willing to risk the same.

He stood up feeling steeled in his heart, he was going to face the consequences of his actions for once as opposed to his usual talent of running away.

A distance scream snapped him from his reverie, he spun to face the Titans tower and saw the Titans jet docked to the top. At superspeed his mind put two and two together; Jinx was in the tower alone and now the Titans were there and had found her.

"You don't understand!" Jinx said holding her hands up in protest and talking in a pleading tone most unlike her.

"Like hell we don't." Cyborg said lifting his arm which was now a sonic cannon. The blast hit the wall and as the smoke cleared it became apparent that Jinx was not there.

"I really shouldn't leave you alone should I?" Kid Flash mused aloud, the others turned to see Kid Flash on the other side of the room with his arms supportively around a rather disorientated looking Jinx.

"No." Jinx muttered straightening up and sliding out of the boys arms, Kid Flash looked unhappy at her withdrawal from him but did not stop her moving.

"You knew she was here?" Robin asked tersely.

"Of course, I brought her here." Kid Flash said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The other Titans gawped at this but it was Robin's reaction that caught Kid Flash's attention the most.

"**Have you lost you MIND Flash?!"** Robin bellowed at Kid Flash, **"She's a CRIMINAL! She belongs rotting in JAIL!"** He said pointing an accusing finger at Jinx and forcing her to back up into Kid Flash's chest to avoid being jabbed in the face. Kid Flash protectively put his hands on the top of Jinx's arms and stared stonily at Robin.

"She wants to be a Titan, I nominate her to be a Titan." Kid Flash said pointedly speaking the sacred words. Robin's face was beginning to go scarlet with rage by this point.

"**NO!!!"** He yelled in frustration and unclipped handcuffs from his belt. Kid Flash pushed Jinx behind him at this point and spread his arms in front of her defensively; he planted his feet firmly on the floor and stared at Robin daring him to make a move. The other four Titans were watching the scene with astonishment and Jinx was watching Kid Flash in awe, he was so serious and strong, all traces of silliness and childishness were gone; it was so un Flash-like.

She lifted her hands and placed them supportively against Kid Flash's yellow spandexed back, she could feel the hot muscles just beneath his skin and even through his tenseness at the situation she felt him shiver slightly in pleasure at the feel of her icy hands.

"She'll be a Titan over my dead body." Robin said firmly but didn't move.

"And she'll go to jail over mine." Kid Flash replied.

The two stared at each other for a moment longer.

"It's not your decision anyway, if two Titans disagree over the nomination of a new Titan it goes to a vote." Kid Flash said knowingly.

"He's right." Cyborg chipped in having already checked the database.

"So?" Kid Flash asked turning his head to the others and pushing Jinx forward but still shielding her from Robin and his handcuffs with the bulk of his body.

Starfire was the first to come forward, she grasped Jinx's hands and looked into her eyes.

"Do you truly wish to change for the force of good?" Starfire asked her meaningfully. Jinx looked up from their joined hands to the unnervingly green eyes above.

"I…" Jinx faltered, she thought for a second, "I suppose I already have, I can't commit crime anymore thanks to this one." Jinx said jerking her head in Kid Flash's direction who smiled proudly at this. Raven narrowed her eyes at Jinx's comment.

"So… yes." Jinx answered properly, Starfire positively beamed.

"Then I would be proud to call you a fellow Titan!" She smiled floating backward slightly but still staying closer to her and Kid Flash than to Robin. Kid Flash smiled, he could hear Robin grinding his teeth.

"Beast Boy?" He prompted. Beast boy looked up uncertainly and shook his head.

"I can't. Not… not after Terra. Sorry man." He said quietly and stepped closer to Robin. Kid Flash swore under his breath, he'd been counting on Beast Boy's vote, it was Cyborg he'd been uncertain about.

"Cy?" Kid Flash asked hopefully, he could just feel Robin's self assured smirk burning into the back of his head.

"I don't know man, I went undercover at the HIVE. This could just be a get back trick…" He mused and looked over at Jinx.

"But she was always pretty genuine, smart too. So… maybe she's just made the smart choice a little later than the rest of us. So… I'll give you a chance Jinx." Cyborg said stepping closer to Jinx and Kid Flash.

"Raven?" Robin asked certainly and smugly, he knew in the case of a tie that protocols stated that it counted as a rejection of the proposed Titan.

Raven looked deeply and silently at Jinx for some time. That look made Kid Flash's skin itch just being near it, let alone the subject of it, but Jinx stood stock still.

"What would you do if I said no?" Raven asked calculatingly.

"Go to jail by the looks of things." Jinx replied flatly, her pink eyes staring at Raven's purple ones.

"And you'd stay there?" She asked.

"I'd have to." Jinx answered feeling the tension thicken, Kid Flash stepped slightly closer to her unconsciously, she took some comfort in the blinding heat that he constantly radiated.

"And after?" Raven continued.

"Be one of the good guys regardless of whether you let me join your stupid little club, I couldn't care less about your approval." Jinx snarled fed up with the pointless and obviously redundant questioning, it was clear Raven had already made up her mind. She felt Kid Flash flinch at her response.

"Then be a Titan." Raven said and left the room in silence.

"So… we win." Kid Flash said thoughtfully before turning to laugh in Robin's face. Jinx blinked in stunned disbelief.

"Congrats." Cyborg grinned slapping her on the back slightly painfully and nearly knocking her over.

It was some time later after Jinx had been given a blank looking room under the grumblings of Robin that Kid Flash finally appeared.

"So, congratulations Jinx." Kid Flash said spreading his arms wide in joy.

"You're officially a Titan." He grinned manically. Jinx nodded numbly. Kid Flash squealed and picked Jinx up and spun her around in his arms laughing. Eventually he set her down with a smile.

"Now I'm surprised I didn't get hexed for that." He commented wryly and sat down on Jinx's new bed, she sat down after him.

"I'm proud of you." He said honestly. Jinx tilted her head back towards the ceiling and closed her eyes with a tired sigh.

"A Titan." She muttered in quiet disbelief. Kid Flash had meant to say something along the lines of 'yes, you made it' or 'you deserved it' but his eyes were caught on the line between Jinx's slender neck and her sharp jawbone and the concave line of soft skin there. And urge welled in his chest and in what seemed like a lifetime to him but was probably merely a second and his lips were pressed against it.

Jinx made a sound that was half gasp and half something else but Kid Flash didn't care as he kissed his way slowly along the line of her jaw and throat. A moment later Jinx's hand was firmly against his chest, not pushing him away but firmly stopping him.

"Do that again and I will hex you." She warned.

"My," He breathed hotly against her jugular, "A warning _and_ a second chance, I must really be growing on you." His eyelashes fluttered against her skin.

His communicator beeped loudly and obtrusively in his pocket, he growled against her skin and leant back pulling the communicator out. He quickly flipped it open and closed at high speed and sighed.

"And my good deed to you makes me bound to do Robin's legwork, read: I've become his bitch." Kid Flash groaned, he stood up and walked towards the door but turned to Jinx before he left.

"I'll be back for dinner sweetie." He smiled charmingly, he was gone in a blur and the hex hit the door. His laughter echoed down the hallway as he escaped. Jinx smirked, rolled her eyes and flopped back on her new bed exhausted.

A/N: Sorry about the delay people. It's been hectic getting used to my second year in university, the class levels and the workload has really stepped up a lot so it's taken me a while to adjust but I've been wanting to write this scene so bad that I've been writing it in between my classes in my uni notepad! So I hope you all enjoyed and if you did please review, it makes me so happy!


	7. Chapter 7

He felt a little bad for lying to Jinx about what Robin most likely wanted to see him for as opposed to stopping minor crimes which he'd hinted at, but Jinx would only feel bad if he knew the truth. Kid Flash appeared in a blur outside the map room that was occasionally used for elaborate plans against buildings with hostages in, thankfully it was a rare occurrence so the room was almost always deserted.

'almost always at least' Kid Flash thought bitterly as he entered the room that he'd been summoned to and found Robin standing darkly against the harsh light of the monitor. It made him look ominous, he'd probably learnt that trick from Batman.

"Kid Flash." Robin stated.

"What is it Robin?" Kid Flash sighed irritated at the theatrics that the bat family often went through.

"Rescind your vote Kid Flash." Robin said with a warning tone to his voice. Kid Flash made a vulgar reply to this involving something physically impossible and horribly biological that Robin should do to himself.

"She doesn't belong here Flash, you must know that." Robin said letting Kid Flash's remark slide.

"She belongs here more than most of us do, she's made a harder transition than civilian to hero is, she's gone villain to hero, you know how much more dangerous that is. You know how much more willpower that takes, surely she's proved that she's more than strong enough to be a Titan." Kid Flash reasoned firmly whilst trying to restrain himself from swearing more.

"And that's exactly why she's more likely than the rest of us to go bad, she's had the taste of it, she knows what it's like." Robin snapped.

"Like you can talk, Red X." Kid Flash growled at him.

"That was for a purpose! It was the only way I could get to Slade!" Robin snarled at him.

"You just keep telling yourself that, you enjoyed playing for the other side for once and you know it." Kid Flash said flatly knowing from the flash of anger and spite that crossed Robin's masked face that he was right.

"And Starfire? She was a convict when you took her in! Raven's nearly destroyed the whole universe, Beast boy went on a feral rampage and Cyborg's caught a virus before and ate half the city! None of you are ones to criticise. She's making a change and you just can't handle that the apprentice of the world's greatest detective could be wrong about someone!" Kid Flash continued loudly and angrily.

"You'll regret it. She'll be the end of you, she goes evil again, which she will, and you can kiss your place as the Flash goodbye!" Robin said coldly hitting one of Kid Flash's vulnerable spots.

"Prepare to be wrong Bird Brain." Kid Flash spat using one of Jinx's terms for Robin, he made a rude hand gesture and left in a blur.

"Fool." Robin muttered turning back to the monitors showing the current surveillance of Jinx in her room.

Batgirl crouched low on the roof attempting to ignore the strong breeze that had nearly blown her off of the roof, that would have been easier had said living breeze not been talking to her.

"Baaatgirl…" Kid Flash said in a sing song voice.

"What?" The crimson haired girl asked stonily and kept watch on the alley below.

"You know how you think Robin is an arrogant little so and so who doesn't have the detective skill to find his ass with both hands?" Kid flash said charmingly playing to Batgirl's quirks.

"The same could be said of you Kid." Batgirl pointed out.

"Ah yes, but I've got subjective time and an awful lot of persistence." Kid Flash pointed out.

"Go on." Batgirl said rolling her eyes at him.

"I want to ask for you opinion on something, or rather someone." Kid Flash asked seriously.

"So… do you think I'm being reasonable making her a Titan or do you think I'm being blinded by love?" Kid Flash finished about half an hour later.

"Probably both. It doesn't surprise me that Robin's against the whole thing, his opinions are about as flexible as a girder. But if you're right about Jinx then it'll only take months and months of perseverance and saving his ass before he even considers that his self righteous opinions could even maybe be wrong." Batgirl muttered grinding her teeth, she really did not like Robin.

"Are you tormenting my sidekick?" A dark voice came from behind Kid flash making him jump and nearly fall off the roof.

"As always, just not this one." Kid Flash grinned and disappeared glad to be putting distance between himself and the Dark Knight. Batman raised a sceptical eyebrow at this and sighed exasperatedly.

"I really need to do something to stop that line of Flash's breeding, they get more and more infuriating with each generation." Batman muttered.

"Oh I don't know, he seems alright." Batgirl smiled and leapt off the roof onto the unsuspecting gang leader that she'd been waiting for all night.

A/N: I've no idea why I didn't upload this, it's been finished for a while, it's only when I went to write a new chapter and check where I'd finished off before that I realised I hadn't. So sorry guys! ;;


	8. Chapter 8

Jinx was glad that as yet she'd not been asked to change her outfit, her first encounter fighting crime would be bad enough without feeling out of her own skin, although having to follow orders from Robin was verging on being worse. She looked up at the tall building that was the museum, she felt the nearly irrepressible urge to climb the decorative stonework on the outside to the roof, the museum may never have been a challenging heist but it was always a fun climb up the outside.

"Star, Raven, you two stay back for Arial surveillance I'm not having more people escape out of here from us. Cyborg, Beast Boy, take the back entrance through the museum and wait for further orders. Kid Flash, try and get the most valuable objects in the museum out of harms way without being noticed. Jinx, you're coming with me to the roof, I'm not letting you out of my sight." Robin ordered, the other titans nodded wordlessly and spread out.

"Try not to kill him, please?" Kid Flash whispered in her ear as he zipped past, Jinx smiled gently at this, Robin would not goad her into doing something dumb.

"Can you climb or do you need a hand up?" Robin asked patronisingly, Jinx nodded curtly and the two began to climb.

Robin was a surprisingly fast climber, but a fairly sloppy one at that. Jinx watched him as she sprung up and latched her hands onto a giant stone flower, Robin reached for his hand hold on the face of a greek goddess and shimmied himself over so he could put his left foot on a stone satyr set into the wall. Jinx felt the pink energy under her skin prick up in warning.

"I wouldn't put your foot on that." Jinx said quickly from below him.

"Why? Going to make it fall off?" Robin hissed at her, his lack of faith in her plainly evident.

"No, but you will. I don't just make bad things happen I KNOW when they're going to happen, precognition if you will, and if you put your foot on that it'll go wrong." Jinx said exasperatedly as she climbed up to his level, Robin eyed her coldly and put his foot on it anyway. The stone satyr cracked and gave way sending Robin off balance, Jinx snatched his flailing hand to stop him falling and glowered.

"I _told_ you!" She hissed irritated.

"You did that!" Robin snarled back.

"I did not!" Jinx snapped at him and the stone shattered loudly on the floor below.

"Hey, what was that?" A voice said from below.

"Oh, nice one bird brain." Jinx growled and threw Robin up the remaining half meter onto the roof and lept catlike up herself cutting short her semi-enjoyable climb. She shoved an indignant Robin out of sight and ducked down herself, flattening her hair to reduce her visibility.

"I don't see nothing." Another voice from below said and the sound of retreating footsteps made it clear that the pair had gone back to whatever it was that they were doing to enable the heist inside.

"Close. Now come on, I know a way in here." Jinx said looking around at the nearly bare roof.

"I know, the ventilation shaft." Robin said walking towards it.

"Or, we could use the loose ceiling panel that leads into the support beams for the chandelier that all the decent crooks use to get in here." Jinx said with a smirk, no matter how good the boy was he'd never have the know how that the other side did about breaking and entering. Robin narrowed his eyes at her but didn't move, taking this as acceptance Jinx counted along and across the tiles until she came to the one.

"It's this one." She said pointing down. Robin looked at her expectantly.

"I don't know what you're looking at me like that for, this tile is too heavy for me to lift by myself, I normally have people to do these things for me." Jinx said narrowing her eyes, for all her strengths as a fighter strength itself wasn't one of them.

"Look, if you don't want these guys to get away we're going to have to do this together, both of us are used to leading not taking orders so if we can both just work as a team then maybe we can get through this without screwing this up." Jinx sighed, dealing with Robin was really starting to grate on her, she bent down and began to lift the tile on her own after a moment Robin helped her and they wordlessly slipped down onto the metal beams of the ceiling below.

Jinx surveyed the scene below her, a fair number of the things that she would have stolen were already gone, a red and yellow blur zipped past one of the items that she'd eyed out and in a blink of an eye it was gone; she smiled, Kid Flash was good at what he did. Jinx eyed the two villains below, they were familiar faces but no one that she particularly knew, she'd seen them around some of the various dodgy bars of the city where things that people wanted but shouldn't have could be acquired at a price. Her eyes zipped across the familiar exhibits, they seemed to be going purely for the value of the items as opposed to collecting a set which could be sold as a group at a higher price, she shook her head; amateurs.

"Got a plan or are we just jumping them?" Jinx whispered eyeing Robin carefully. In response Robin wordlessly jumped down from the rafters.

"Stop thieves!" Robin shouted at the surprised villains, Jinx dropped next to him

"Yeah, because that always struck fear into my heart." Jinx muttered landing next to him, "Give it up and I might not have to hurt you." Jinx added to the slightly perplexed looking bad guys.

"Hey…" One of them said slowly, holding a very valuble looking vase, "Aren't you Jinx? Didn't you break Jimmy Knuckles' knuckles for information over the diamond heist?"

"Ah, yes, good times." Jinx said wistfully.

"So… why are you with the Titans?" The other one asked suspiciously.

"Change of heart." Jinx said flatly.

"Yeah, she's with us now." Kid Flash smirked appearing behind Jinx before zipping forward and taking the vase off of the first crook, "So I'll be taking this!" He grinned and vanished. The two crooks looked at each other before turning on their heels and running for the door.

"I love it when they run, RAVEN!" Robin shouted upwards, his voice echoed upwards through the hole in the ceiling through which they had clambered down up towards Raven. Raven spread her arms wide encasing the two crooks in a field of psychic energy.

"That was remarkably anti-climatic." Jinx said feeling disappointed.

"Allow me to enhance your evening then," A voice said from behind Jinx and Robin, the two spun around to see Red X heading for the door with what Jinx had deemed the most valuable object in the place, the same luck amulet that she'd tried stealing before and one that she was sure that Kid Flash had removed from the building before her and Robin interrupted the pair of crooks.

"Thanks those two for the distraction for me, and I'll be on my way." Red X grinned turning to the door.

"You think you can outrun us? We've got Kid Flash with us!" Robin shouted after him smugly.

"Not anymore we don't… he got that necklace from Kid Flash." Jinx said quietly, the black suited thief turned to them with what from his body language Jinx assumed was somewhere between surprise and approval.

"A sharp one. The boy certainly does breathe in knock out gas faster than your average hero, a downside of super speed I'd venture. I'd never have put you down for going hero Jinx." Red X commented looking her up and down. Out of the corner of her eye Jinx noticed Robin begin a lunge in Red X's direction, with lightning fast precision he was quickly stuck to the wall by a giant glue X.

"The lady and I were talking." Red X said firmly and turned his attention back to Jinx.

"What would you have put me down for then?" Jinx asked trying to sound only vaguely interested.

"Not staying with the HIVE five forever that's for sure, but I'd have guessed a position more of moral ambivalence like myself." Red X proposed, Jinx tilted her head in thought and the other titans watched on with baited breath, with Kid Flash not around would Jinx still choose the path that she had newly proclaimed for herself?

"Tempting but no. I'm an all or nothing girl." Jinx said folding her arms casually.

"Too bad." Red X said pulling a handful of small ball like gadgets out of his pocket.

"Ah-ah." Jinx smirked waving a finger at him, "You REALLY think those will work with me around?" She said snapping her fingers, the small ball like objects flashed pink for a moment but nothing more happened. Red X's eyes slid from the balls to Jinx and back again.

"You're bluffing." He said uncertainly.

"If you're so sure then go ahead, but you know how badly those could misfire on you. I suppose the question is, how lucky do you feel?" The bad luck queen smiled. Red X considered this for a moment before swinging his arm up


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Gah, I'm really sorry everyone, the last chapter was meant to be an awful lot longer and not, you know, cut off mid sentence. My computer must have crashed at some point and deleted the second half without my realising before I uploaded it. I've no idea how that happened, which sucks as I'd gotten the second half just right and now I'm going to have to try and remember it all over again. I wasn't sure whether I should re-submit this as chapter eight or just continue on chapter nine, but I eventually decided nine so that people who reviewed the incomplete chapter 8 could review for this. Again, I apologize people, blame my sucky computer.

"Ah-ah." Jinx smirked waving a finger at him, "You REALLY think those will work with me around?" She said snapping her fingers, the small ball like objects flashed pink for a moment but nothing more happened. Red X's eyes slid from the balls to Jinx and back again.

"You're bluffing." He said uncertainly.

"If you're so sure then go ahead, but you know how badly those could misfire on you. I suppose the question is, how lucky do you feel?" The bad luck queen smiled. Red X considered this for a moment before swinging his arm up, the Titans were later to disagree as to exactly what came out of the pellets but the general consensus was some kind of glue/gunge/explosion hybrid caused by three of the pellets backfiring simultaneously and that the resulting mixture took the Museum staff three days to scrape off of the walls and ceilings.

Jinx stared down at the ooze covered form of Red X blankly, she shifted her gaze to the open museum door and saw a familiar glimpse of fiery hair at the corner of the steps.

"I bet your idiot team don't even know about you yet do they? Or anyone else for that matter!" Red X snarled wriggling against the tightening ooze, Jinx paused momentarily, her team probably hadn't noticed yet and as this was her first bust she could go back still. But oddly the thought suddenly held no attraction for her, all that seemed to be on her mind was finding out if Kid Flash was okay.

"I thought not. But believe me, by the end of the day everyone will know and they'll all be after your skin!" Red X shouted triumphantly. Jinx forced this thought down and stepped over him towards the cool night air of the museum entrance.

Slumped awkwardly on the floor by the steps was Kid Flash, near him was the spent knock out gas pellet. Jinx worriedly looked at how close his head was to the step, if he'd been running when the gas got to him he could have hit his head hard on the way down. She skidded down the remaining steps to him, thankful that he'd not fallen the whole way down the whole flight of stairs and turned him over. Much to her dismay and angry red gash ran across one corner of his head from his right temple to his hairline and the red stain on the edge of the step above him confirmed his story, he'd hit his head and hard too.

"Kid Flash, can you hear me?" Jinx said holding a hand by his mouth to check for his breathing, thankfully he still was but she got no vocal response from the boy to indicate anything even near consciousness.

"Come on, wake up." Jinx ordered him as she pulled his body into her lap and cradled his injured head in her arm, experimentally she tried getting up but it seemed unlikely that she could carry him and certainly not bridal style, Kid Flash was a good three inches taller than her at least and the boy was all lean muscle which made him pretty heavy to boot.

"Mnnrh." Kid Flash grunted after a moment.

"Wake up!" Jinx urged and tapped his face with her free hand in a vain attempt to get him to come round.

"Uhnnnn." Kid Flash moaned unhappily and rolled away from the hand accosting his face and right into Jinx's chest. After a stunned and slightly angry pause Jinx decided that this could be possibly the only scenario in which the speedster could bury his face in her somewhat sparse cleavage and not get hexed to tiny little pieces of Kid Flash.

"WAKE. UP." She growled shaking him roughly. Kid Flash's eyes eventually fluttered open slightly and he looked at her blearily.

"Jinx." He smiled in a dazed and hazy way, Jinx resisted the temptation to roll her eyes at that look.

"It's me Kid Flash, listen, you need to stay awake, I think you've got a concussion." Jinx said slowly and clearly, a dopy cheeky grin spread across the boy's face as an idea slowly occurred to him.

"If you kiss me I'll stay awake." He grinned up at her, Jinx's eye twitched. She could accept that flirt was probably Kid Flash's default setting but nonetheless…

"You can be my prince charming." He added with a lazy smile.

"No." Jinx said icily, there was no way the boy could make fairy tale references and not be awake enough to stay awake himself, he was just trying to trick her into kissing him.

"Mkay, back to sleep I go. So tired." Kid Flash shrugged and his eyes started to close again, a second or two of outraged silence from Jinx followed.

"Kid Flash?" She asked tentatively but it seemed the boy was out cold again.

"WAKE UP!" She yelled shaking him, with a grumble he opened his eyes again.

"I'll give you a kiss if you stay awake! Deal?" Jinx snapped at him, Kid Flash slowly seemed to calculate this.

"Am I interrupting anything?" Cyborg asked from a few steps up, having heard only the last line of conversation.

"He's got a concussion, I'm trying to keep him awake, you got a better idea?" Jinx snarled up at the half man half mechanoid.

"Well _I'm_ not kissing him." Cyborg snorted folding his arms.

"Ewwww…" Kid Flash moaned and wriggled away from Cyborg and further down Jinx's lap.

"Come on Kid Flash, you need to stay awake yeah?" Jinx said soothingly as she tried to shift Kid Flash into an upright position.

"Uh-uh. Where's my kiss?" Kid Flash protested and squirmed making Jinx's task even more difficult.

"Fine. If I do this will you stay awake and get in the car?" Jinx glowered at him.

"Yessum." He nodded happily, Jinx groaned, this was not what she'd signed up to heroing for. With a sigh she leant down and lightly brushed her lips against Kid Flash's, his lips parted and a small sound of happiness escaped before a wiry hand came up to the back of her head faster than she could believe and pulled her into a deep kiss, with his tongue in her mouth. She yelped and snatched her head back, her eyes glowing a furious fuchsia and her hair crackling with energy, despite this very imminent danger to his personal safety Kid Flash looked quite pleased with himself.

"Oookay! I'm getting you in the car before you get murdered!" Cyborg said quickly snatching Kid Flash from Jinx's lap at a run and hurriedly threw him in the back of the T car and sped off in it leaving a fuming Jinx on the steps to the museum leaving her to only hex nearby trash cans.

"I gotta kiss." Kid Flash slurred proudly as he clambered into the front passenger seat nearly kicking Cyborg in the head as he did so.

"You certainly did, you know she's gonna kill you right Red?" Cyborg said checking the rear mirror to check that Jinx wasn't storming after them with all the fires of hell behind her; he was relieved to see that she wasn't.

"Uh-uh. Because I love her and she loves me, I know because I'm not dead yet." Kid Flash proclaimed as Cyborg wound down the windows in an attempt to keep Kid Flash awake.

"That's some wonky logic right there." Cyborg smiled gently as he weaved his way through traffic to the Titans Tower.

Jinx grumbled and returned to the museum where Robin would no doubt be being an ass and where Red X would no doubt still be being snide.

Jinx sat in her room drawing or more to the point, scribbling out her frustration and annoyance. With a pneumatic hiss her door slid open and a patched up Kid Flash appeared leaning casually against the door frame, she eyed him warily and threw in a glare for good measure.

"So… my insurance company said that they're not insuring me anymore, apparently kissing you like that, concussed or not is a policy violating move being that it falls under suicidal. Funny that huh?" He smiled trying to force down his nervousness, Jinx mentally translated the statement to 'sorry, I was an ass' and her expression softened.

"You're an idiot. You're lucky Cyborg got you away before I hexed you to death." Jinx muttered turning over a new sheet and sketching back in her usual light fashion.

"You'd never hurt me, not really. And that's not a challenge by the way." Kid Flash said shaking his head though still ever wary of goading Jinx into something by saying she wouldn't do it. He flopped back on Jinx's bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"And how do you know?" She said narrowing her eyes at his presumptuous statement.

"Because you show me more patience than I've ever seen you show anyone before, that and if you were going to hex me into oblivion you'd have done it already." He shrugged, after a while he felt the need to add to this statement, "not that I'm planning on pushing my luck again mind you." He reassured her, Jinx grunted noncommittally and looked down at her sketchpad.

"Good to hear." Jinx said icily and continued sketching, Jinx was grateful for the comfortable silence that settled, Kid Flash didn't even fidget. Which was a good thing because it allowed her to indulge her most recent secret hobby, drawing Kid Flash. She wasn't sure when it'd started precisely, but he'd started creeping into her drawings, his lighting bolt appearing on things or his face being re-drawn onto fictional characters. She'd only noticed when she drew his insignia onto her fantasised super villain uniform, she'd checked back and found hints of him in her earlier work too. Now however it was a full blown addiction, he just moved so interestingly, he was graceful but unconsciously so and his face was so damned expressive that it was hard not to draw him.

Her fingers flicked the pencil to highlight the expression of serenity displayed on the face of the boy before her, she was tempted to remove his mask so she could draw his face better but then he'd guess what she was doing and that would be awful. As if he sensed her thoughts his eyes clicked open and he rolled onto his side and looked up at her, resting his head on his arm; her fingers automatically began anew to capture the new pose, she'd gotten good at speed sketching since meeting him.

"What are you drawing?" He asked curiously watching her, the pencil in her hand froze at this.

"Nothing." She muttered and put the pencil down awkwardly.

"Aww come on, show me." He whined at her and reached out for the book but stopped with his hand hovering an inch or so away from it. Jinx stared at the hand, the message was clear 'I want that book and I could VERY easily take it, but I won't, so give it to me.' Jinx glowered at Kid Flash and threw the sketchbook at him sullenly.

Eager at this display of trust Kid Flash flicked the sketchbook open at the beginning, here were the unicorns he'd found the first time he'd gone through her sketchbook, her weakness for unicorns really was an endearing character trait. He flicked through the book, it quite suddenly changed from unicorns to people, expressions and poses. Here on this page was a hand reaching out towards the viewer, but it didn't seem somehow to be a hand reaching for help, more a hand offering it. And here was a boy sitting on a bench alone looking as if he was looking for someone in a crowd, his unruly hair seemed familiar. Next came a page with supervillain outfits on, he couldn't help but notice the lightning bolt carefully drawn and hastily scribbled over. And now a page of scrawled doodles with noticeable lightning bolts in the mix. It was the next series of pages that got him the most though, they were drawings of… of him, a portrait of him at the beach in the silly Hawaiian print beach shorts that he owned staring out at the ocean, she'd memorised the scene. And there were more drawings of him in positions he remembered being in, the most recent page had him at just how he'd been laying, he looked serene and happy, he knew he'd certainly felt that way and it must have shown on his face.

"Jinx." He murmured almost unconsciously, he turned his head to see Jinx pointedly looking at a wall on the opposite side of the room as if she was trying to forcibly make this situation be not happening through sheer force of will. But what could he say? He was obviously on her mind a lot more than he'd anticipated and he was scared of making her skittish around him all over again and what exactly did she expect him to do? She was the one who had given him the sketchbook, okay thrown it at him, but still.

"How come you draw me looking so calm always? If anything I'm a blur of motion all the time, how do you draw me calm?" He blurted out in an effort to fill the silence. Jinx looked at him a little taken aback.

"I just draw you how I see you when you're around." Jinx replied a little stunned. The idea stole over Kid Flash that he WAS calm when he was around Jinx a lot of the time, okay, on edge in case she decided to zap him but still she made him serene. He didn't think anyone had ever done that before, now there was something for him to chew over in the hours of frequent insomnia.

"I'd better get going, I ducked out of the last of my medical exam with Cyborg to come see you, he's probably pissed at me for getting away. It's not like I can help it, he's just got such cold hands." Kid Flash said grinning at his own joke and disappearing in a blur of evasiveness.

Jinx was left to stare at the closed door. Damn him, she thought irritatedly and picked up her pad again and began to draw.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Sorry for the delay people, i've got uni essays due, but i thought i'd chip in this chapter after a review from Hotspur prompted me to finish this one and put it up. Hope you like! -

Kid Flash walked down the hallway deep in thought, he'd considered before that Jinx liked him because she tolerated him and was even occasionally nice to him, not of course overlooking the fact the he'd convinced her to turn her life around but she may have done that without him. He stopped when he saw steel toe capped boots entered the top of his vision, Robin was standing just down the hallway from him blocking the passageway.

"Kid Flash." He said flatly, Kid Flash grimaced at this, he and Robin used to be friends.

"Robin." He said less harshly than Robin had greeted him, "Looks like Jinx proved you wrong, huh?" He said staring at his own reflection in the tip of the boots in front of him.

"For now." Robin said turning his head away, silence fell between the two boys.

"She'll betray you you know!" Robin blurted out, Kid Flash scowled.

"You're a jerk sometimes, you know that Robin?" He retorted and turned around to walk off, but a hand on his arm stopped him. He tilted his head slightly to see Robin looking at him imploringly, Kid Flash sighed.

"I know I know, it's only because you care." Kid Flash said holding up his hands, Robin relaxed at this, "that and you're too maladjusted to actually SAY that. You bat-family types really need some therapy." Kid Flash smirked.

"Coming from the boy wearing skin-tight spandex?" Robin asked pinching a fingerful of the stretchy material and pulling it away from the red-head's body and letting it go a moment later with a satisfying snap noise.

"Yowch!" Kid Flash yelped jumping backwards and rubbing where the spandex had pinged him, now he knew what the girls in his school had felt like when they first started getting bra's and he'd do this to them, no wonder he got hit a lot.

"I HAVE to wear this, you know that. Small clothing fires are never fun." Kid Flash pointed out.

"Yeah yeah, you're no better than the guys at the beach who wear Speedos two sizes too small." Robin laughed at him, Kid Flash rolled his eyes and shoved Robin away with a laugh.

"You're awful. How about we work on a friendly conversation? I could give you a hug?" Kid Flash offered open armed.

"You could get lost." Robin retorted rolling his own eyes.

"Aww come on, you're blatantly hug-deprived, I guess the big bat's not one for Kodak moments huh? Come on, hug!" Kid Flash demanded, Robin seemed to consider this before throwing a smoke pellet and legging it in the opposite direction. Kid Flash laughed and gave chase through the smoke shouting 'hug!' after him.

Cyborg looked up just as the yells came charging down the hallway, he saw Robin dashing manically away from an open armed Kid Flash who was trying to laugh and run at the same time, it was obviously slowing him down.

"HUG ME!" Kid Flash shouted between bouts of laughter.

"NEVER!" Robin shouted back and skidded around a corner quickly followed by the yellow and red speedster.

"That was… the oddest thing I've seen in a while." Cyborg muttered thoroughly weirded out, he looked down the hallway to see an equally confused and disturbed Jinx standing at her door open mouthed.

"Hey Jinx." Cyborg greeted her quietly, this was the first time he'd caught her alone since she joined the Titans. The girl seemed to hesitate between ignoring him and returning to her room and talking to him, she eventually chose the latter.

"Cyborg." She nodded and reluctantly walked to his door.

"We've never… you know, talked since HIVE." Cyborg began carefully, Jinx narrowed her eyes slightly at him.

"We talked." She said flatly.

"You knocked me out and buried me up to my neck in sand in the beach! It took me hours to get out!" He said exasperatedly.

"It was at low tide." Jinx pointed out pouting.

"Some small comfort. Look, I was just on a mission, I didn't know I'd make friends and be betraying people." Cyborg sighed in apology.

"Well you did." She scowled and shifted her hands to her hips aggressively, Cyborg held up his hands peacefully at this, he knew Jinx well enough to recognise when she was genuinely mad at someone.

"Technically you've betrayed people, you can't exactly play the betrayal card here." He said pointedly, Jinx turned her head at this.

"At least I'm honest about when I'm switching sides, you just pretended to be someone else, you faked and lied. At least I'm honest." Jinx muttered staring at the opposite wall.

"I didn't fake everything." Cyborg said pulling a picture off of his wall and holding it in front of Jinx. It was the two of them at the HIVE academy's dance, Jinx was in the middle of a graceful pirouette with Cyborg, or rather, Stone holding her hand above her and one hand near her waist.

"You kept yours." Jinx said quietly as she held the glossy photo in her hands gently.

"You didn't?" Cyborg asked curiously.

"It's at the HIVE five headquarters, I didn't exactly pack much before leaving it. Didn't pack sensibly either, just a change of clothes, a few roses, snow globe, sketchpad and some other weird shit." Jinx said with a small laugh and a small smile.

"Well you can keep that one, I've got copies on the computer, I'll just print out another." Cyborg smiled back.

"Yeah, cool. I'll… see you later." Jinx said sounding far away and turned and left. Cyborg smiled tolerantly, Jinx obviously couldn't take over a certain amount of emotion in one conversation, she never could.

Cyborg leant over to his computer and found the file of his photo and selected 'print' the slow machine that was his disused printer whirred into life slowly. A loud yell of Robin's echoed down the corridor, Cyborg guessed that Kid Flash had finally caught his prey and not a moment later Kid Flash blurred into the room and ducked down in the corner of Cyborg's room.

"Shh! I'm not here." Kid Flash hissed and held a finger to his lips.

"Yeah, careful I'm printing something- out." He finished just as the page finished printing and jabbed poor Wally in the eye.

"OW!" He yelped rubbing his eye and grabbing the glossy sheet of paper, as soon as he looked at it he gawped in silence.

"Was? Was this before your accident? You're all… human, but Jinx is… you accident was YEARS ago." Kid Flash stammered looking at the photo.

"It was a holographic projection, I was on a mission to infiltrate HIVE." Cyborg explained, Kid Flash didn't take his eyes off of the photo.

"Jinx mentioned something like that." He said blankly staring at Jinx's happy expression as she was frozen in mid dance. Cyborg felt uncomfortable to say the least.

"It was a friend thing. Honest." Cyborg said flatly but Kid Flash just sat staring at the photo.

"She's dancing." Kid Flash said numbly.

"It was a dance, it's what you're meant to do." Cyborg said irritatedly.

"But she DOESN'T dance, I've…I've tried." Kid Flash said remembering Jinx's flat out refusal to dance with him in the HIVE five hallway.

"Her dancing is like her fighting, pretty aggressive and powerful." Cyborg smiled at the memory, he realised when he looked down at Kid Flash that he'd said the wrong thing, his shoulders had fallen and the poor boy looked crestfallen as he stared at the photo. It was like kicking a puppy.

"Gimme that." Cyborg muttered taking it from him and pinning it to his wall were the other copy had been before.

"I just gave Jinx my copy because she didn't take hers with her." Cyborg sighed, Kid Flash said nothing and Cyborg rolled his eyes, obviously he'd have to spell this out for the boy.

"She brought your roses and not my photo, now shoo." He added begrudgingly and shooing the speedster out of his room.

Kid Flash stood in the empty hallway sadly, the last thought was some comfort, but Jinx said herself she'd not brought all she should have brought with her and she was in a daze when she packed, so it didn't really mean anything. A horrible thought stole over him, had she just joined the Titans to see Cyborg again? She had seemed pretty worried about Cyborg being mad at her. He groaned and slowly dragged himself to the main room and collapsed on the sofa face down.

After a few minutes of Robin poking him without any signs of life he left to find Cyborg.

"Hey Cyborg?" Robin asked poking his head around the door.

"What no- oh. Sorry, I thought you were Kid Flash." Cyborg smiled weakly at his leader.

"No, but I was actually going to ask you if you knew why he looked so depressed and possibly verging on dead." Robin said suspiciously.

"Urgh. He just got the wrong idea about my photo of Jinx at the HIVE dance." Cyborg shrugged indicating the photo on the wall.

"Mmm, wrong idea." Robin said flatly and left the room frowning. He'd never approved of that photo and now it was causing trouble, he realised as he headed back to the kitchen that he was being followed. He snuck a glance over his shoulder to see that it was Jinx following him absorbed entirely on balancing a plate and two mugs precariously in one hand whilst trying to carry a sketchpad and lots of pencils in the other without dropping anything, she probably hadn't even noticed him.

As he entered the living room he saw that Kid Flash had moved and was playing a new, but still somewhat depressing game.

"She loves me," He said plucking a rose petal and blowing it away, Robin quickly calculated the number of petals left on the near bare rose head and worked out that it would come to 'she loves me not'. Jinx had stopped at his side and was also watching this sad display. She walked calmly to the kitchen and set her crockery down in the sink Kid Flash had noticed her entrance but not changed what he was doing, merely the volume.

"She loves me not," he said pulling off another petal sadly, even he could see the way the rose was going to turn out. He reached for the next as Jinx was halfway across the room headed back the way she came.

"She loves me." He muttered pulling the next one off, there was only one petal left after this one. Suddenly the whole flower caught fire in his hand as Jinx walked past and left the room, he yelped and threw it to the floor and sucked his burnt fingers.

"Looks like that's the last petal." Robin smirked and left the room. Slowly Kid Flash's brain kicked in and he stared at the petal in his unburnt hand.

"She loves me?" He asked tentatively.


	11. Chapter 11

Jinx shifted the sketchpad in her hands around so the binding wasn't cutting into her fingers like it was before, she'd originally intended on drawing in the Titan's living room, with those huge windows the light in there was much better than in her room but with Kid Flash feeling sorry for himself for goodness only knows why it was the last place she wanted to be. That and setting fire to things of Kid Flash's was one of her favourite pastimes along with keeping him on his toes around with her. Jinx couldn't help but smirk at this, giving her a slightly unhinged look as she walked along the hallways of the Titans Tower with a manic grin for apparently no reason.

Jinx made her way up to the roof to find that Raven was already there meditating, Jinx paused on the stairs and Raven opened one eye and looked at her levelly. After a few moments of silence and apparent sizing each other up Jinx made her way over to the ledge and sat down before it, setting out her pens and pencils quietly and then got to work, Raven closed her eyes again and the two sat in silence which was only occasionally broken by the scratching of a pencil and a whispered chant of 'Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos'.

Red X stood sullenly in the mess hall of the Jump City jail waiting for his food to be served to his indented tray, across the room his eyes caught on the figures of the HIVE five boys and his curiosity was piqued. With a full tray of Jail food glop he sat down at their table.

"Oh look, it's mister 'thinks he's too good to be a common villian'." See-More sneered as he sat down at their table.

"Pardon me for knowing when I'm outclassed in 'common', you five do it so well." Red X said smoothly and insultingly.

"Buzz off snot brain." Gizmo snorted and inhaled a mouthful of food.

"Well someone's cranky, did the police not believe you lot when you told them you'd turned to the side of good?" Red X asked with a smile hidden behind his skull mask, in a flash Mammoth was up with one dustbin lid sized hand holding him to the table and the other raised in a threatening fist.

"Say that again, I dare you." He growled menacingly.

"Yeah, we're no good guys!" Billy said indignantly apparently feeling the need to have two of him say this, for emphasis apparently.

"Ah, how very interesting. So let me ask you gentlemen, when was the last time you saw your femme fatale of a leader? Because I can guarantee that I saw her more recently and in much more interesting circumstances." Red X asked provocatively. The HIVE five looked at each other and tried to recall the last time they HAD seen Jinx, it wasn't unlike her to disappear for days at a time or to even not be seen for a whole week even in the same building as them, they slowly started to realise from each other's looks that it had been QUITE some time and Red X was looking more and more smug with each passing second.

"I saw her last night." Red X said simply as Mammoth released him.

"Oh ha ha." Gizmo said flatly and rolling his eyes at what he was sure was going to be innuendo.

"-when she arrested me, along with the other Titans." Red X finished with an unseen Cheshire cat grin.

"Yeah right, pull the other one." See-More said with a slight uncertainty in his voice, he remembered how Jinx had looked at Kid Flash.

"Yes, she did seem _awfully_ concerned about Kid Flash." He continued as if reading See-More's mind and went through the motion of inspecting his nails, not that he could see them through his gloves but sometimes reality really did have to give way to _style_.

See-More shot Gizmo a panicked look, this was sounding more than possible now; Gizmo frowned, even Billy and Mammoth looked concerned, Gizmo didn't even bother looking at Kyd Wykkyd, he was rarely expressive.

"Be quiet, what else do you know? And if you're pulling one over on us you'll regret it pit-sniffer." Gizmo threatened narrowing his eyes at Red X.

Jinx jumped as the alarm rang out through the building, it took her a few moments to realise that it was the alarm that was wired into all the security systems of the city, doubtless Robin also had it hooked up to the police radio too, that boy REALLY needed a hobby of some kind. Raven sighed and stood up.

"Why does no one ever commit crimes on horrible rainy days?" Raven muttered looking out and the beautiful summer day which they would now have to spend fighting.

"It's incredibly hard to look stylish robbing a bank with soaking wet hair, it's just not done." Jinx grinned knowing that she used to prefer days like this for crime. Jinx heard an unusual sound and turned around to see that it was Raven laughing at what she'd said and walking down the stairs to the inside of the tower. Jinx was fairly certain that Raven laughing had to be the strangest thing she'd seen all day, suddenly the image of Kid Flash chasing Robin through the tower demanding a hug forced it's way into her mind; she smirked, the Titans had certainly made her life interesting. Jinx jumped down the stairs and caught up with Raven, maybe being a Titan wouldn't be so bad, she mused.

The Titans pulled up the T-car and Robin's motorbike outside the local computer store, the police already had it surrounded. As the Titans got out of the car and Raven and Starfire landed Kid Flash noticed Jinx looking wary and trying to edge away from the group. Her muscles looked tense and she was poised on the balls of her feet looking ready to run at any moment, Kid Flash looked from her to the scene in front of them and put two and two together; this was the first time that Jinx had run into the police since her changeover.

"Hey," He said softly putting a hand on the small of her back, "It'll be okay, they know you're with us, that was part of the deal."

"It's not going to be okay." Jinx muttered looking warily at the police. As she spoke the police turned to greet the Titans and fill them in on the situation when they caught sight of her, very quickly several hundred pounds of police officers hurled themselves at her. Jinx found herself crushed under the weight of at least three members of the Jump city police force who were known for slacking off with the Titans covering their asses, and obviously these asses had grown more than a little heavy with all the doughnuts. She felt her face ground into the tarmac and a boot on her neck keeping her there, other pudgy hands scrabbled with handcuffs at her wrists, it was the most she could do to not put them all in hospital, instead three water mains down the street exploded and the handcuffs snapped in the police officer's hands.

"Whoa whoa! She's with us!" Kid Flash yelped waving his arms desperately, "Tell them Jinx!" He added.

"Gzzlrgl." Jinx gurgled from the floor and several policemen.

"With you?" The police officer asked tentatively as if rolling the idea around his mind slowly.

"Yes." Kid Flash said trying to tug the policeman off of Jinx, reluctantly he moved, but the other two did not.

"But she's a criminal." He said seemingly feeling that something was still very wrong here.

"Not anymore, she's with us, a Titan." Kid Flash said trying to remain calm and not rip the men off of Jinx, he knew all to well the policemen often did badly with sudden movements, and sudden was practically Kid Flash's middle name.

"No one told us." The other policemen grumbled and got off the pink haired girl, Kid Flash glowered at Robin who suddenly found something else very interesting to look at in the other direction.

"Well now you have been, go tell the others." Kid Flash said pulling Jinx up and the policemen left.

"It'll be fine." Jinx parroted back to Kid Flash in a high pitched voice that was apparently meant to be his as she dusted herself off and sucked at a handcuff inflicted gash on her wrist.

"Are you okay?" He asked raising a hand to a nasty asphalt burn on Jinx's cheek that was oozing slightly and would probably produce a nasty scab.

"I'll live." Jinx muttered jerking away from him.

"Apparently it's an angry customer that's got out of control and turned into a hold up according to sergeant over-enthusiastic over there." Raven explained motioning to one of the officers that had recently re-aquatinted Jinx with the pavement.

"Any idea who it is?" Robin asked businesslike and impervious to the evil look that Kid Flash had been aiming at him for some time.

"I'm SO not coming out until I get that iPod in pink!" A high pitched voice screamed, both Jinx and Robin blanched at this and ducked down behind the T-car.

"Kitten!" Robin squeaked straining to get lower behind the car.

"The Titans are here, so come out with your hands up!" A police officer over a megaphone ordered. There was a pause before a banshee like squeal of happiness emerged from the building as the blonde-haired girl bounded out eagerly.

"Robbie-poo!" She yelled happily, there was a collective silence of all the Titans struggling their best not to burst out laughing at that point and Kid Flash bore a grin that informed Robin that he wouldn't be living THAT one down for years.

"You heard the lady, go get her you big crimefighter you." Cyborg grinned and picked Robin up by the cape and placed him on the bonnet of the car from which he was promptly body tackled by an excited Kitten.

"Oh Robbie-poo I missed you so!" She cooed happily, Starfire's fists clenched tightly at this. Kitten sat up happily before freezing in place as she caught sight of Jinx.

"ohgod." Jinx muttered just before the banshee scream of delight broke out again.

"JINXIE!" The blonde announced and hurled herself at Jinx who was now half standing in an attempt at escape.

"WHERE have you BEEN girlie? We've all missed you so much, you never return my phone calls anymore!" Kitten pouted from her position latched around Jinx's waist, Kid Flash's face broadened in delight and informed Jinx that she too would NEVER hear the end of this one either.

"Yeah… how bout that…" Jinx muttered trying to subtly extricate herself from Kitten's vice like grip.

"But oh my gosh have we got SO much to talk about!" Kitten continued on relentlessly.

"Yeah, well maybe during visiting hours." Jinx squirmed, the blonde's jaw dropped making her look, if possible, even more gormless than before.

"_You're_ arresting _me_?" She gawped straightening up in shock, Jinx edged backwards in relief.

"I'm a Titan now." Jinx explained, the words feeling foreign in her mouth, Kid Flash felt a little twinge of pride at this despite Jinx's obvious lack of comfort at the present situation.

"When did you stop being fun then?" Kitten asked surprised, Jinx's eyes unconsciously flicked up to Kid Flash and back again but Kitten caught the momentary tell and looked around, her eyes falling on the red head in question.

"Oh I see…" She smirked looking between the two of them, "You did it for him." She nodded sagely.

"I did NOT!" Jinx snapped scandalised.

"Ah-ah, protest all you want Jinxie, I can see it in your eyes." Kitten waved a hand dismissively at Jinx and eyed up Kid Flash.

"Not bad I suppose, pretty face, fine enough if pretty boys do it for you." Kitten mused, Jinx watched with a glower as Kid Flash's ego swelled at this.

"Did you have to pick a ginger guy though? It's so…ugh." Kitten said wrinkling her nose.

"Hey! I'm not ginger! I'm… red haired, strawberry blonde, auburn, anything but not-" Kid Flash protested hopelessly, Robin smirked at Kid Flash's embarrassment, he'd always hated being called that.

"Ginger!" Kitten snapped with her final verdict, and walked around a crestfallen Kid Flash.

"Nice ass though…" Kitten mused and attempted to slap it but Kid Flash was gone in a blur and had his back to the T-car next to Jinx.

"I warn you woman I can vibrate my way through solid objects, you'll never catch me!" He yelped holding his hands out in front of him to ward of the fearsome entity that was Kitten.

"Aaaah, now it makes sense." Kitten smirked with a sly wink at Jinx who turned scarlet at the notion.

"I'd REALLY like to think that'd never occurred to you until now." Robin muttered to Kid Flash as Kitten was lead away by the police.

"I'm sure you would." Kid Flash smirked, behind him Jinx turned an even deeper shade of red.

"So why should we believe that just because we've not seen Jinx for a while that she's suddenly turned good? She's disappeared on us before for a week or two to go sun herself in some exotic country because she's gone all girly and huffy on us." Gizmo said narrowing his eyes at Red X over the prison lunchroom table, they'd been talking like this for some time and Gizmo was still acting unconvinced.

"Urgh, it's Gizmo." A voice behind him sneered in an annoyingly high pitched note.

"Get lost Kitten." Gizmo growled without even needing to turn around to see who it was, that voice was unmistakable.

"No need to get all grumpy just because Jinx put you in here too." Kitten huffed, Gizmo's eyes widened as did Red X's grin, the timing couldn't have been better.

"What about Jinx?" Gizmo asked urgently looking at Kitten who greeted him with a look that plainly said she thought he was the lowest scum around, which, to be fair, he probably was.

"She's a titan now, with that red and yellow boy toy of hers." Kitten shrugged and walked off.

"I told you, now, what's in it for me to not tell everyone here she's a turncoat then?" Red X smiled nastily at the remaining members of the HIVE five.

"She'll pay for this." Gizmo muttered darkly and began negotiating Red X's silence, he's not have the whole of the villainous community thinking he was a fool.


	12. Chapter 12

Kid Flash noticed that something was up with Jinx the moment they got home, she cleaned and bandaged the giant graze on her face calmly without a bad word at Robin, she sat and acted normal at dinnertime, laughing with Starfire and teasing Beast Boy with Raven who she seemed to have developed a bond with, but he knew something was up. There wasn't the usual sparkle in her eye and when the others were distracted with talking to each other the mask slipped a little. He watched her carefully, not that he ever stopped watching her really but this time it was with a worried intensity. He watched her as he leant against the table in silence as she piled plates on top of the ones Raven was levitating into the sink. He followed her quietly when she excused herself and walked down the hallway to her room, when he judged that they were out of the way of where the others could accidentally walk in on them he grabbed her wrist, not, in retrospect, one of his brighter moves.

"Jesus!" Jinx shouted holding a hand to her beating heart as she looked down at the stunned and hexed Kid Flash on the floor.

"Ow." He groaned leaning up on his elbows and trying to blink his vision back to normal and tried to ignore the parts of his clothing that was, yet again, smoking.

"Sorry, just… don't sneak up on me like that!" Jinx gasped waiting for her heart to slow down.

"Are you kidding me? Even with super speed I've never managed to sneak up on you before, not like that. Tell me what's up!" Kid Flash demanded as he got shakily to his feet.

"What up is you scaring the living daylights out of me!" Jinx snapped having regained enough of her composure to shout at him.

"No, that's not it, something else was up at dinner-" Kid Flash paused, what could he say? 'you were acting too normal'? That wouldn't go down well, he knew that much. "look, I know you well enough to know when something's up, so please, tell me?" he sighed.

"How the hell can you say you know me?! You don't know anything about me!" Jinx snapped angrily, Kid Flash barely raised an eyebrow at this.

"Now you're just being defensive, come on, just let me help." He said gently brushing her arm, Jinx glowered at this, it was pretty much her default defensive expression after all and it had previously kept everyone else at what she deemed a safe distance away from her, that was of course until Kid Flash came along.

"And what if I don't want your help?" Jinx sniped, hoping to hit a nerve, Kid Flash merely let it wash over him. Jinx could be abusive like this when something was up but he knew she didn't mean it, it was just meant to keep him away when she was scared of being vulnerable, just like Robin's mask or Raven's hood, everyone had their way and this was hers.

"So you admit there IS something up." He pointed out calmly, Jinx turned on her heel and made to storm off at this, but she only got a few steps before she stopped. He moved closer but stayed silent and simply watched Jinx's shoulder muscles tense.

"It's what Kitten said." Jinx muttered in barely more than a whisper.

"What? Calling you Jinxie?" He joked, a angry flash of Jinx's eyes warned him that his humour was NOT appreciated in this matter.

"Ah, sorry." He said quickly, Jinx turned her head away from him and glowered along the corridor.

"That… that I was doing all this for you. Becoming a Titan, leaving the HIVE five, all of it, just for you." Jinx said tensely, Kid Flash thought carefully about how his was going to word his reply.

"But I know that's not why you did it, you're a hard enough person to convince when you even agreed a little bit with what I was saying in the first place, I'd never be able to convince you to do all of this just for me; however gorgeous I may be." He added with a slight smile, the corner of Jinx's mouth twitched upwards at this.

"So modest." She said rolling her eyes.

"So… why is that bothering you? You know it's not why you did it, so what's the problem?" Kid Flash asked moving around Jinx so he could see her face, he was at least slightly encouraged by the fact that she didn't turn back around the other way to stop him seeing her expression. She looked incredibly troubled though, her brow was furrowed and she was chewing on her lip, outward signs of nervousness that she rarely showed, as worried as he was for her he felt somewhat touched that she seemed to be okay with him seeing this side of her.

"What… what if she were right?" Jinx asked looking him straight in the eyes, he gaped at this.

"Wh- is she right? I- what are you trying to say here?" He stammered shocked.

"Uh-uh, I'm the one asking the questions, what if I told you that the only reason I was here, the only reason I did all this was you? What would you say?" Jinx demanded giving him a piercing look, Kid Flash's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's.

"I don't know I'd be not nearly as happy as I'd think I'd be." He answered after a few moments, "I'd be ecstatic that you liked me that much of course… but it'd mean that you didn't really think that what you used to do was wrong, that you hadn't changed at all and… and that you're not the person I think you are." He replied feeling more and more sure with each passing word. Jinx nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer but said no more, after a few more moments Kid Flash got tired of the silence and prompted her to go on.

"Well? Was that why you did it?" He asked impatiently.

"No! Of course not!" Jinx said louder than she'd meant to, Kid Flash cocked an eyebrow apparently unconvinced at this response.

"But that's what they all think. They think I'm only here for you, that the moment you leave, which you will eventually; I'll be gone. And worse still I'll know information about the Titans when it does happen, I'm a ticking time bomb to them. And everyone else is just going to think that I'll switch sides the moment a pretty boy bats his eyes at me!" Jinx ranted angrily and glowered angrily at the wall on her left.

"Hey hey, first of all, who said anything about me going anywhere? I'm not going." Kid Flash said softly as he caught her cheek in his hand, her eyes crept back to him and she sighed deeply.

"You _will_ though, even if it's not that you find another girl who's not… you know-" Jinx said gesturing to her thin, lithe and in her opinion flat, body; "For an attractive girl." Jinx tried again and continued over Kid Flash's protests to the contrary, "Even if that's not the case, you'll become the Flash eventually or one of us will go solo or have to go elsewhere. It's going to happen, and they'll all think I'm gonna go bad again." Jinx finished loudly over Kid Flash's protests against her evaluation of her appearance and gave him a look that said if he continued he'd be hexed.

"Why do you CARE what they think? You never have before." Kid Flash asked suspiciously, Jinx shifted uncomfortably at this and turned away again.

"Because I'm not sure they're not wrong." Jinx replied almost at a whisper, Kid Flash's eyes widened at this, hadn't she just said the opposite?

"Not that I haven't changed I don't mean, I do agree with you and what I used to do I could never do again, I have changed but…" She trailed off quietly and stared down the corridor and tried to ignore Kid Flash's presence behind her, which was hard with the amount of heat he radiated at all times.

"But?" He prompted cautiously, he could already see Jinx tensing up and apparently getting ready for fight or flight mode.

"I wouldn't have listened to you or given you the chances I did if you'd not been so interested in me, so full of faith that I was better than the others. I wouldn't have listened if you'd not been… you. Which means if it's a little of both, they could be right, I might change back…" Jinx said with her back to him still and a slight quiver of fear in her voice.

"Hey," He said comfortingly and reached out to her, as his fingers brushed her arm he felt her muscles jerk at the touch, he tried again, "Hey, you're stronger than that, I know you are. And you know it too, heck, you'd stay just to prove them wrong. And again Jinx, I'm not going anywhere."

He reached for her arm again and this time she jerked her whole arm away from him, he watched as she moved almost too fast for him as she spun on a foot and caught his chest with the forearm of the one he'd just tried to grab and slammed him into the wall so hard the air was knocked from his lungs. His lips were only just forming the word 'what' when she tangled a hand in his hair and pulled, Jinx crushed her mouth against his almost painfully and she bit his lip hard just as her other hand slipped up the shirt part of his spandex suit and soon there was ice cold skin against the burning heat of his stomach. And the whole thing _hurt_, the hand in his hair pulling and the teeth on his lips and the shock of icy fingers on his solar plexus that he couldn't help but moan into the good/bad feeling of the whole thing. No sooner had his mouth moved to let out such a sound was Jinx assaulting the inside of his mouth in the same brutal way, he could feel his body literally thrum at this and he was sure that he was scuffing a high-speed pattern of his body onto the wall he was crushed up against, it was like being kissed by a tornado, painful, sudden and forceful and completely Jinx. Suddenly Jinx pulled back and to his utter embarrassment all he could do was pant out a few needy letters that came out as an incomprehensible 'aahnuhh'.

It took Kid Flash a good couple of seconds to regain the power of speech, which for him was FAR too long.

"I- ah- that- Jinx?" He managed aware that his skin was already flushing scarlet.

"So I can still keep you on your toes." Jinx smiled with an air of satisfaction around her as she folded her arms.

"Hell yes!" He blurted out, "Feel free to surprise me again at any time." He added hopefully but still out of breath, Jinx smiled and stepped towards him.

He'd prepared himself for the same kiss as before, harsh and sudden, but she melted against him this time, the hand in his hair caressing not pulling and a hand drawing spirals up his back gently up his spine, this new kiss somehow managed to make him just as breathless as its predecessor. He felt Jinx's eyelashes tickle his cheek as she opened her eyes again and moved away gently with a smile and headed to her room.

"I'm going to bed- alone." She added as if sensing his jaw drop behind her as she waved him off without turning around and after a moment the door automatically closed behind her, he stood there dumbstruck for a few minutes until Beast Boy wandered past and stopped at him. He looked ruffled and messed up, he knew that much, but what he hadn't been expecting was:

"Dude, your lip's bleeding." Beast Boy pointed out wide eyed, he looked at the wall behind Kid Flash and spoke again in surprise, "What happened to the wall?!" Kid Flash turned around in the numbness of post sensory overload to see that he had indeed burnt his image into the wall behind himself, unfortunately Robin would recognise his silhouette, with a slight grin as he walked off he wondered if Robin would figure out WHY there was an imprint of him on the wall. Probably. Boy would he like to see Robin try and bring THAT up in conversation.

Ignored and confused Beast Boy stood in the hallway and wondered if he should tell Kid Flash that the back of his shirt was all ripped and melted, probably not he decided, as he could already see scratch marks appearing on the back of the boy's neck.


	13. Chapter 13

Jinx returned to the jewellery shop out of breath, she bent over and rested her hands on her knees and wheezed out an explanation to Robin.

"They… got away… I'm sorry." Jinx panted and straightened up.

"It's okay Jinx, I'm sure Star and Raven will have more luck from the air and Beast Boy is following their scent." Robin said patting her on the shoulder, Jinx nodded at this, it wouldn't be the first time that villains had been caught by the two airborne Titans or the small shape shifter some time after the fact, herself included. Robin looked around the destroyed jewellery shop in dismay.

"Would you mind staying here and helping the police file their report and try and estimate how much they stole? You've always had a knack at sorting diamonds from glass." Robin smirked.

"Sure thing." Jinx shrugged knowing that she'd drawn the short straw before, they all hated dealing with the police reports but it had to be done. As Robin left Jinx enjoyed the silence of the shop for a moment or two before bending down and sifting through the glass on the floor looking for discarded diamonds.

"Well, what do we have here?" Jinx murmured picking up a shimmering rock, closing one eye she held it up to the light. She grinned catlike, all that glittered might not be gold but NOTHING glittered quite like a diamond and she'd never been fooled yet by polished glass, this was a diamond and a real beauty too.

She glanced down at the floor and her jaw dropped, convinced she must be wrong she shifted her hand through the sparkling floor but to her shock all the pieces of what she'd assumed were glass before glittered in that unmistakable way. In one swift movement she ripped off a sleeve, tied a knot in the bottom and started scooping the diamonds off the floor and into her makeshift bag. She stood up and surveyed the shop in a well practiced way, it didn't take long for her to select several pieces, a few easily sold on and several flashy expensive things for her private collection, she'd always liked necklaces. Hefting her bag over her shoulder she turned to the door to find it blocked by a shocked Robin, she smirked.

"See ya boy blunder." She smirked and sent him a powerful hex that knocked him off the floor, as she stepped over his prone body she smiled satisfied, she was in for a very profitable future.

Jinx gasped and sat bolt upright in bed with sweat pouring off of her and gasping for air.

"Jesus, what a dream." Jinx muttered hugging her knees with one arm and running a hand through her loose tangled hair. Had that been a nightmare or a dream? She stared at her shaking hand, was she turning back into a criminal? She shook her head fiercely, if that had been a dream, a good dream, she'd not have woken up so scared and horrified.

"But what if it _is_ the beginning of me turning back?" Jinx whispered to the empty room. She slowly laid back on her bed but was unable to will herself back to sleep no matter how exhausted she felt, several hours of trying later Jinx looked at her clock and decided to get up, it turned out that the others were up too and apparently being very loud.

Jinx surveyed the argument with some interest although she seemed to be the only one doing so.

"TOFU!" Beast Boy screamed waving a block of it in Cyborg's face.

"BACON!" Cyborg shouted back waving a pack threateningly at the green boy.

"They have this argument every time it's either of their turns to cook, just so you know." Raven commented bored as Jinx jumped over the back of the sofa to sit down, still in her pyjamas. She wasn't the only one though, Starfire was wearing pyjamas with cats on and bunny slippers, Raven wore plain black pyjamas as was to be expected and Robin being the anally retentive person that he was, was dressed in his uniform. He probably slept in it, Jinx mused thoughtfully. Next to her Kid Flash was dressed but he had all the time in the world to do what he wanted, so that was no surprise. Jinx turned her attention back to the argument playing out entertainingly in front of her.

"And they've not come to any solution? Like eat one on each of their turns?" Jinx asked surprised, Raven shook her head.

"No, they both refuse to eat each other's food, or cook it." Raven sighed and turned a page, trying to focus on her book over the din.

"NO ONE wants your stinking tofu!" Cyborg shouted, Jinx grinned.

"I'll try it." She said speaking up, Cyborg looked just as shocked as Beast boy at this.

"You're a vegetarian?" Kid Flash asked sounding surprised and annoyingly keen.

"No, I've just never tried tofu before. You have to try everything once." Jinx smiled tolerantly.

"What like being a hero?" Robin muttered not too quietly so Jinx couldn't hear him, she ignored this.

"Wow! Thanks Jinx! I'll start cooking now!" Beast Boy squealed delighted and threw on an embarrassingly girly apron.

"You just had to throw a spanner in the works didn't you?" Raven said rolling her eyes, Jinx grinned broadly at this.

"It's my job." She laughed, making Raven smirk.

Jinx sat down at the table watching an eager Beast Boy running around the kitchen and Cyborg trying to avoid tripping up over him. Jinx felt an odd itching on the back of her neck making her look up, suddenly she came eye to eye with Robin staring levelly at her, the temptation to look away welled up but she forced it down out of habit of years of showing no weakness, and she'd be damned if she'd show any to bird boy.

"Why are you really here?" Robin asked quietly cutting through the loud bubble of talk like a knife through silk.

"Robin!" Kid Flash and Starfire reprimanded him in unison.

"Why shouldn't I be?" Jinx asked keeping her eyes locked on him, determined to stare him down.

"Because you don't belong here damnit!" Robin snapped banging his fist on the table and making all of the cutlery jump.

"Robin, you promised." Kid Flash said, his voice taking on an uncharacteristically dark tone.

"I did no such thing." Robin said brushing the remark off and glowering at Jinx.

"You really want to know the truth?" Jinx asked lazily twirling a fork in her narrow fingers.

"Humour me." Robin said flatly.

"I've not really changed at all." Jinx said with a slight smile, Robin grinned triumphantly at this.

"I knew it." He said smugly.

"Can it bird boy, I'm not done." Jinx snapped jabbing a fork in his direction.

"From the moment my powers came through everything was horrible for me, the people I trusted turned their backs on me, I was made homeless, chased out of town, hated, feared, everything. I turned to crime to support myself, it was that or starve, no shelter would take me in. Everyone who could have helped me turn my life around failed me and even made my situation worse, you included. Sure, I commit a crime if I get caught I get thrown in jail, but that place is awful, if you're super powered all they do is slap a power inhibitor on you and leave you to rot, they don't help you control your powers, set you up with any better way of life, nothing. They don't care, no one does, as far as everyone is concerned we're just dead end cases." Jinx said coldly, the prongs of the fork in her hand began to melt as she gripped it tightly and her powers started to let out.

"As far as I was concerned the world owed me everything but was never going to give it to me, so I might as well take it from them, I was going to be someone one way or another, brotherhood of evil or otherwise." Jinx added and dropped the tortured fork on the table.

"Kid Flash convinced me that I was better than that, and he's right. I can get what I want, the respect, the safety, the food and the shelter this way too." Jinx said coldly.

"That doesn't sound too moral." Robin pointed out dryly.

"No, it doesn't; but this is the truth, just because _I've_ got the guts to admit that this isn't one hundred percent selfless doesn't mean I'm immoral. If that was the only reason there'd be no difference for me between one or the other and I'd still be where I was." Jinx snorted rolling her eyes.

"And your other reason is what? Kid Flash here?" Robin asked, not taking his eyes off of Jinx.

"Interesting, but no. Every person I stole from, every person I hurt would feel a little bit more about the world like I did; feel a little bit more like the world was out to take them for all it could get, and I hated feeling that way, I hated it being true. So what would that make me if all I did was make sure that happened to someone else? For all I know I could be responsible for another person like me turning out like I had. Not everyone's going to be as lucky as I was to have someone convince me that I was better than that. So the short answer is I've just decided to make a difference, the world screwed me over but it doesn't mean that I have to continue it and more to the point if I can make it better then I'm better than everyone who ever made it worse for me. Good enough answer for you or is the inquisition going to continue?" Jinx asked challengingly, Robin's eyes narrowed irritatedly.

"Breakfast!" Beast Boy and Cyborg announced together as they brought the dishes to the table.

"What happened? Someone die?" Beast Boy asked looking at the sullen faces around the table.

"Nearly." Raven smirked and took her plate from Cyborg.

"You ought to be careful Raven, that almost sounded like a joke." Cyborg grinned handing plates out to everyone but Beast Boy and Jinx.

"Oh, damnit." Jinx muttered picking up her bent fork with a sigh.

"I'll get a new one." She sighed moving to stand up, but Raven's hand on her arm stopped her, Raven waved her hand over the fork which turned black and straightened out, Jinx smiled and started eating.

"Hey, this isn't half bad Beast Boy." Jinx smiled after taking a few cautious mouthfuls.

"Yeah, it's ALL bad." Cyborg laughed at Beast Boy.

"Hey, shut up!" Beast Boy yelled annoyed.

"Same old argument, rinse, lather and repeat." Raven sighed rolling her eyes and got on with eating her food.


	14. Chapter 14

Jinx heaved as it felt like her stomach tried to turn itself inside out, as she retched she cursed Beast Boy and his ungodly food. She heard her bedroom door open as she pulled herself up to the sink and rinsed her mouth out, she swiped at the flush for the toilet and hung her head weakly over the sink gasping for air.

"Hey Jinx, you should see Beast Boy, he's so sick he's green. Well, greener than usual." Kid Flash said quickly before noticing that Jinx's bedroom was empty.

'Don't let him hear me being sick.' Jinx breathed in silent prayer, not that she cared what he thought, but a girl had to have standards.

"Jinx? You in there?" Kid Flash asked rapping gently on the metal door between him and her, Jinx stayed silent in the hope that he'd go away.

"I know you're in there, I can feel the total lack of body heat and the sense of humour vacuum from here." Kid Flash said rolling his eyes.

"Hey!" Jinx snapped automatically before covering her mouth realising her mistake, she had _not_ just been tricked by a dork in neon spandex, she glowered, she could feel the kilowatt smile he was wearing even through the thick metal door.

"Come on, let me in." He whined.

"No!" Jinx snapped angrily and sat down on the edge of the bath waiting for him to go away.

"Aww, come on." He said pleadingly.

"No!" Jinx repeated annoyed.

"You know I could vibrate my way through that door right?" He pointed out.

"No! Don't!" Jinx yelped jumping up, "I'm… ill." She said pathetically.

"Oh no, Beast Boy hasn't gotten you sick too has he?" Kid Flash asked, the worried tone evident in his voice.

"Yeah, like food poisoning or something. Evil little git made it taste nice until this happened, it's not so nice the second time." Jinx said wrinkling her nose and rinsing her mouth out with mouthwash, she noted she was nearly out.

"Oh Jinx, is there anything I can get you to make you feel better?" Kid Flash asked sounding worried.

"More mouthwash." Jinx grumbled sliding the door open and slipping out with the bottle and shoving it at his chest.

"Got it." He smiled gently and put the bottle on the counter top by the door, he ran his eyes over her, she did look poorly.

"You managed to get dressed at least." He observed.

"Yeah, I felt more human after having a shower and getting dressed." Jinx nodded running a hand through her completely fuzzed up and crinkled hair, it was down in a tangled mess by her shoulders.

"You're paler than usual, and you feel all cold and clammy." He noted worried as he felt her face.

"Yeah, I know, I'm a wreck okay?" Jinx huffed stepping back from him irritated.

"You're not a wreck, I'm just concerned." He smiled charmingly before planting a quick kiss on her lips.

"Eww you scuzzbag, I've just been sick!" Jinx protested childishly wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

"I don't care!" He laughed happily and grabbed her into a hug.

"Squeeze me and you'll regret it!" Jinx threatened as the boy hugged her and nuzzled her neck. A beeping from his belt made him pull away with a groan, he checked the beeping thing and sighed wearily.

"A robbery downtown, I gotta go. You stay here and get better, I'll pick up your mouthwash okay?" He smiled before zipping off. Jinx stood contentedly in the silence of her room before wandering into the bathroom and forcing the window open upwards, she stood on the rim of the bath and pulled herself up so she half dangled out of the window. She watched Kid Flash zip off over the bridge with a smile.

"Silly boy." She muttered affectionately before climbing down.

Kid Flash was tired, not physically of course, but mentally. This was the third robbery they'd arrived at in a row but each time they got there the bad guys had got away, the police were so slow to notify them every time that even he couldn't catch them and he was expecting no less at the third robbery.

"They went that way!" A woman yelled pointing down an alleyway, Kid Flash was never one to shy away from being proved wrong.

"I'm on it!" Kid Flash yelled back to the Titans, Robin broke into a run after him, they'd always worked well as a team of two; Kid Flash and Robin. Kid Flash skidded around a corner at high speed and growled at what he saw.

"The HIVE five." He spoke the dislike evident in his voice, they turned around to face him, or rather Kyd Wykkyd and Mammoth did, the alley was so narrow it was impossible to see anyone else. Kid Flash charged at the same moment that Robin rounded the corner. Robin kept his eyes on Kid Flash as he pulled out his birdarangs and blinked in surprise when Kid Flash charged at Kyd Wykkyd and disappeared through the vortex in his cloak.

"Make this disappear!" He growled throwing them at the HIVE five, the birdarangs bounced up the walls and exploded showering the small time villains with rubble and debris, they yelped and shouted before retreating hastily. Robin's eyes widened as he saw the familiar fuchsia horns of hair retreat around the corner as Mammoth ducked to protect himself from the falling bricks.

"Urgh. He teleported me to the bottom of the harbour! You know what an awful swimmer I am!" Kid Flash gasped as he appeared dripping wet and gasping for breath at Robin's side.

"I just saw Jinx." Robin said looking straight at Kid Flash.

"What? Did she just show up? I guess the sickness must have passed." Kid Flash said looking around the corner to see if he could catch sight of her.

"No, with the HIVE five." Robin said unemotionally, Kid Flash looked around at this.

"That's not funny Robin." He said narrowing his eyes at his dark haired friend.

"I wasn't joking Wally." Robin said flatly using Kid Flash's real name to emphasise his point.

"I didn't think you'd sink so low as to lie like that." Kid Flash growled turning his back to storm off back to the others, a hand grabbed his arm.

"I'm not lying." Robin urged his friend, Kid Flash paused and walked back to the group with Robin in silence.

"So much for they only come out at night huh?" Cyborg chuckled looking at the parade of punk styled kids walking past in a parade, it hurt Kid Flash's eyes to look at them, he'd never seen so many different neon hair colours in one go.

"Happy now? You probably just saw one of these girls." Kid Flash said gesturing to the crowd.

"I know what I saw." Robin said stubbornly.

"Saw what?" Starfire asked not taking her eyes of the Technicolor display of hairstyles walking by.

"I saw Jinx, with the HIVE five." Robin stated much to Kid Flash's dismay.

"So he says." Kid Flash added, Raven closed her eyes and extended her mind.

"I can't sense her." Raven informed the group.

"There, Raven says it too, _now_ are you happy?" Kid Flash asked exasperatedly, Robin could be so awful with ideas like this, as soon as he got one stuck in his head he'd never let go, good for investigating but awful for arguments.

"They were running off pretty fast, she's probably too far away now." Robin said waving a hand dismissively.

"Anyway," he added at Kid Flash's groan, "if you're so sure, call her and the communicator will tell you where she is." Robin said challengingly, the boys stared at each other for a while, presumably one of them won as Kid Flash pulled the communicator off of the clip on his belt.

"Fine. I will." He huffed, selecting Jinx's communicator from the list of names and selecting 'call'. The others stood in silence waiting for a result until Kid Flash conceded with "It's off. I'm sure she just doesn't know how to charge it yet or something."

"Let's just go home and see for ourselves then? And hopefully the police won't catch us to do a report." Cyborg suggested to the agreement of everyone.

"Oh, you're a goddess Jinx!" Beast Boy praised the pink haired witch as he ate the food in the bowl before him. Behind them the doors to the tower slid open and the tasty aroma of food reached the noses of the hungry teens.

"Ooh! Food!" Cyborg yelled happily and dashed over to the counter.

"Hey, I was hoping you lot would get back before it got cold." Jinx said serving up a bowl of her food for Cyborg with a smile.

"You cook?" Kid Flash asked surprised from a stool next to Beast Boy who was quite literally wolfing down his food.

"Yep, you want some?" Jinx asked giving the giant frying pan another stir and wafting the tempting aroma over to him.

"Do I ever! I'll have nine portions please!" He grinned charmingly holding out a bowl that he'd gotten from seemingly nowhere.

"You'll have one and like it bud." Jinx said threateningly jabbing a wooden spoon in his direction before serving. "And eat it like a normal person." She added watching as he prepared to inhale the meal, bashfully Kid Flash froze and began eating it slowly.

"Hey Jinx, is your communicator working? I tried to call you earlier but I couldn't get through." Kid Flash asked curiously, he really wanted Robin to have to eat his words about Jinx.

"Oh that thing? I can't get it working for the life of me, I'm awful with technology, it's something to do with my powers, Gizmo had to give me a new communicator practically every week because they kept breaking. Feel free to have a look at it if you want." Jinx sighed having had the experience to never buy expensive gadgets, she couldn't even carry a pager without it exploding, let alone any of the high tech cellphones and ipods the other girls her age always seemed to have with them.

"Anyone else want any of this?" Jinx asked pulling a few more bowls out of the cupboard and missing the pointed 'I-told-you-so' look that Kid Flash sent Robin.

"I'll have some." Raven said quietly as she sat down with Starfire, Jinx dutifully served the two of them, it was about then that Cyborg finished his inspection of the meal.

"Is there any meat in this?" He asked shocked and scandalised.

"No, it's a vegetarian stir fry. No meat, and no tofu either, so no one has to be sick." Jinx said glowering at Beast Boy.

"How many times do I have to apologise? I got sick too!" Beast Boy whined pitifully.

"Until I stop feeling ill!" Jinx snapped throwing a spoon at him violently.

"How are you feeling?" Robin asked coldly from the other side of the room.

"Sympathy? I'm surprised. I'm feeling a lot better thank you, still a little queasy but as long as I'm not doing any back flips today I should live." Jinx said resting a hand on her hip and inspecting Robin suspiciously.

"And pray, how long have you felt well enough to be out here cooking and in plain sight of Beast Boy to vouch for you being here?" Robin demanded.

"About half an hour, stir fry doesn't take long to cook." She replied narrowing her eyes at him feeling like she was being attacked by some high inquisition that was Robin.

"So more than enough time for you to have robbed three stores, be seen by me and have Kyd Wykkyd teleport you back here then!" Robin snapped pointing a finger accusingly at Jinx.

"I'm not going to even bother replying to that bird boy, this is getting beneath me." She glowered at him.

"You may have Kid Flash wrapped around your little finger but I see you for who you are and you'll be behind bars by the end of the week, I guarantee it." Robin snarled at her before stalking off angrily.

"Well I'm spitting in the next meal I cook for him, until then who wants his portion?" Jinx muttered gripping the wooden spoon so hard that it cracked and then caught fire.

"Oh! Me!" Kid Flash yelped waving his hands in the air desperate for more food.

"I am sorry about Robin's behaviour Jinx, it is most unlike him." Starfire apologised sadly.

"It's okay Starfire, he's not your fault." Jinx said shaking her head wearily.

"And it is like him really I suppose. He'd treat Slade or the Brotherhood of Evil the same way, in his mind there's just no difference between you and them. He'll come around, eventually." Cyborg sighed, their leader could be so… difficult sometimes for all his brilliance.

"I hope so." Jinx sighed sitting down with her own food next to Kid Flash who merely smiled into his noodles at this huge display of public affection from someone as defensive as Jinx.

"I'm putting some meat on this." Cyborg said standing up and walking over to the fridge.

"Urgh. Philistine." Jinx said rolling her eyes and laughing.

"Aww, my little housewife." Kid Flash smiled kissing Jinx on the cheek.

"WHAT did you just call me?!" Jinx snapped hexing the boy clean across the room.

Robin stood in the corridor grinding his teeth at the sound of happy laughter and Kid Flash's feeble protests to his innocence.

"Mark my words Jinx, by the end of the week you WILL be behind bars." Robin muttered.


	15. Chapter 15

Kid Flash was pacing, and because it was him he was doing it ridiculously fast, thankfully his room had no carpet in it, for this reason in fact. He wasn't at the tower, he was pacing furiously in the flat that he'd been staying in before the titans came back – because, let's face it, that tower was immensely creepy with no one else in it. And right now he needed somewhere to think that didn't have Robin or Jinx or anyone else in it.

The reason Kid Flash was so stressed was Robin's firmness on his statement that he'd seen Jinx, punk parade and a broken communicator aside, Robin was so rarely wrong when it came to seeing faces, the boy had a photographic memory for crying out loud! And now Robin was making him doubt Jinx, it wasn't that Kid Flash didn't love or trust her but he'd known Robin practically his whole life and he knew better than to doubt his friend so completely.

He groaned and massaged his temples, maybe Robin WAS right, Robin had known Jinx longer than he had and regardless of Cyborg's opinion that Robin just couldn't let go of the idea of Jinx as a villain he knew that Robin had a talent for seeing right through people.

But people changed didn't they? Villains reformed and good guys turned bad, it wasn't unheard of, uncommon yes but not impossible. So maybe Jinx was still a little rough around the edges and not as pure in her motivations as the others and Robin was just picking up on that and refusing to let go.

But maybe Jinx had just been honest about her motivations, Robin founded the Titans just as much for the common good as to prove to his mentor that he could do it, Raven was doing it to prove to herself that even though she came from evil she was good, and what of him? Sure he did it because it was good and it was right, but he knew a part of him loved the attention and being the hero and making the girls swoon after him, and to be honest it was something to DO for him; because with all the time he had on his hands he needed to do something.

He collapsed on a chair in front of his kitchen counters and rested his head on the cool surface.

"Why does my certainty have to abandon me now?" He moaned into the counter surface. With a deep sigh he lifted his head up and stared dismally across the kitchen until his eyes fell upon the plant pot with his much abused flowers in.

"So you survived Jinx too then?" He asked them admiring how well they'd grown since he'd last been here, which was a surprise as plants normally died around him instantly, he didn't exactly have a green thumb, he could barely keep a cactus alive.

"Maybe this is a sign," He mused staring at the faintly glowing flowers, no doubt mutated a little by Jinx's hexes, "that things with Jinx will be okay and Robin was wrong." He added hopefully.

With his resolve slightly stiffened he sped off back to the tower and practically knocked Jinx of her feet. Jinx yelped as suddenly yellow and red arms fastened around her waist into an almost bone-crushing hug.

"What are you doing?!" She demanded shocked, it was only then that she felt the tiny whimper of fear from the boy who had his face buried in the crook of her neck, he was shaking a little. Jinx tried to relax and soften her voice a little, something was obviously up.

"Kid Flash?" She asked warily.

"Mmm." He confirmed from her neck and squeezed her tighter.

"You okay?" Jinx asked trying to turn to look at him, for a moment it seemed like he wouldn't let her move until he slowly relaxed his grip so she could turn.

"I guess." He said with a weak smile, Jinx fidgeted, she wasn't too good at the whole caring thing.

"This was easier back when I could just hex you and tell you to get lost, now I actually get concerned about how you feel." Jinx smirked at him, he laughed genuinely this time and tilted his head so he was looking at her as opposed to trying to press every inch of his face into Jinx's shoulders.

"Yeah, when I used to rush in a be charming and you'd be adorable and angry and I was so certain you were good and everything was just… simple." He said smiling down at her, he didn't quite realise what he'd said until he saw the expression on Jinx's face change dangerously.

"Back when you were so certain I was good? What's with the past tense?" She demanded narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"Because it was back when I first met you." He blinked at her hoping she'd drop it and not see his slip that he cursed himself and definitely Robin for.

"Oh and not now? Now you're not so sure? Regretting ever taking me here?" Jinx snapped shoving him away angrily.

"No! That's not what I meant to say!" Kid Flash gibbered helplessly.

"Oh but it's what you meant though! You believe what Robin said about me!" Jinx snarled storming off.

"No Jinx! I didn't- I don't-" He begged grabbing her wrist, how was it all going so wrong so fast?

"You want some nostalgia? Maybe this'll refresh your memory!" She growled slamming a hand into his chest with a hex behind it, knocking him violently back against the wall, smoking slightly.

"That wasn't as thrilling as I remember." He rasped watching Jinx's retreating form, he shut his eyes and coughed up a little smoke.

"Jinx?" Kid Flash asked cautiously easing open her door, his eyes widened as he saw a bag on the bed half packed and the rest of her room torn up. Panic gripped him and he sped through the room hoping to find Jinx, he burst in the bathroom to see a familiar glimmer of black and purple at the half open frosted glass window. Jinx was somehow sitting precariously on the narrow ledge on the other side, how she managed to get out and half close the window behind her without falling off he'd never know; he supposed she was practiced at sneaking out of small windows.

"Jinx!" He yelped dashing towards her but pausing at the edge of the window opening for fear of scaring her and making her fall.

"Hey stranger, come on out, the air's fine." Jinx said distantly. After a moment Kid Flash obeyed and wiggled his way out of the window and onto the ledge, trying not to open the window so far that it'd push Jinx off.

"What are you doing out here? What happened to your room?" He asked practically at hyperspeed, Jinx smiled vaguely and looked out across the lake that surrounded the Titan's Tower.

"Running away, kind of anyway." She shrugged staring out at the glimmering water. "I decided better of it, before you have a coronary by the way." She added looking warily at the highly strung boy next to her.

"How come?" He asked wary of making her change her mind.

"I figured I shouldn't be so hard on you, if I were you I wouldn't trust me either." Jinx shrugged, Kid Flash opened his mouth to correct her but she silenced him with a glare.

"I know you don't trust me, not really. And you've no reason to, you should believe Robin more than me." Jinx said looking softly at him despite the harshness of her words. Kid Flash stared down at his booted feet guiltily, he should trust her, he knew he should; but then there was Robin. Robin was so rarely wrong and ignoring his opinion for Jinx just seemed… foolish almost. And he hated himself for thinking like that, he should be able to just trust Jinx because he loved her so much, so why couldn't he?

"I guess I just kind of got… caught up in the ideal of the whole thing. Boy meets girl, boy rescues girl from life of crime, boy and girl live happily ever after without a hitch. I should really know better by now, nothing's that easy." Jinx smiled slightly bitterly.

"No! It is like that, honest." He protested desperately, Jinx smiled at him weakly.

"You know it's not. There's a huge step between the second and the third, boy's friends hate girl and are convinced she's still evil, that one tends to get left out." She smirked, Kid Flash looked crestfallen at this.

"Hey, don't look at me like that, it's the way of the world; not everything is so easy and carefree you know. But it's fine, I'm used to the world not being easy, you need me to prove myself? I'll do it, whatever it takes." Jinx nodded, apparently convinced about this course of action.

"You don't need to prove yourself!" Kid Flash protested, hurt at the notion that he'd demand proof from her.

"It's the way the world works Kid Flash. God you're so naïve." She said shaking her head and turning around to get back in the bathroom. She dropped to the floor lightly and looked up at him with a grin.

"For someone so fast, you sure are slow." She smirked at him and left for her bedroom to start unpacking things.

Kid Flash sat on Jinx's bed watching her unpack her bag, whilst it didn't sound that interesting it was basically a free pass to go snooping through her stuff and boy was he coming up with some good things.

"So when you hurriedly packed before coming here, why these? Thinking of me?" He smirked dangling a VERY lacy and revealing set of black underwear from one finger.

"Give me those!" Jinx yelped going scarlet and jumping to snatch them back from him, but in a blur he was across the other side of the room. He grinned and held them up in front of him and closed one eye so they were superimposed over Jinx.

"Mmm, I can just see you in these." He grinned as Jinx snatched them back angrily.

"You'd better drop that mental image right now speed boy or I'll break your face." Jinx growled at him.

"Okay okay!" He said surrendering the underwear, Jinx eyed him suspiciously for a moment before turning around to go and put the offending underwear back in it's proper drawer. She heard the giggle before she felt the gust of wind telling her he'd moved.

"These ones have puppies on!" he squealed in adoration. Before Jinx could inflict a world of pain on the speedster the alarm went off, she glowered at him and ran off; Kid Flash reluctantly dropped his prize on Jinx's bed and followed her.

"Two at once, there's a fire at the orphanage downtown and a robbery at another jewellery story uptown." Robin informed them as they entered the room at a run.

"Jesus, who sets fire to an orphanage?" Kid Flash muttered running a hand through his fiery hair.

"Sick people." Robin replied annoyed.

"Why don't we split up? I can take the orphanage, I'll just hex a few fire hydrants and put it out, with the building's water pipes it'll be easy." Jinx suggested.

"I'll come too, I'll be able to carry water from the lake." Raven nodded in agreement.

"Fine, we'll split up. Let's go." Robin nodded running for the door.

OoOoOo

"You again?!" Kid Flash shouted angrily at seeing the HIVE five again.

"Ooh, too slow Titans." Gizmo smirked hefting the bag of stolen goods on his back.

"Wanna bet?" Kid Flash grinned.

"We thought you'd say that, so maybe you'd better go check the train tracks on the way out of Jump 'cause we stole them too." See-More cackled at him.

"And my my, it's almost time for the 12:15 train, better hurry boy." Gizmo said checking his watch. Kid Flash paled and disappeared in a bang of displaced air.

OoOoOo

"Damnit!" Kid Flash shouted angrily, the tracks were gone and the train wasn't more than a hundred meters away! He sped off to the nearest place that he could think of to get tracks.

"Sorry! I need to borrow these!" Kid Flash said as he disappeared from the main train station in a blur.

OoOoOo

"You've still got the rest of us to deal with Gizmo." Robin glowered at the tiny teen.

"Yeah, about that…" Gizmo said as a bus went hurtling out of control down the hill between them.

"Gee, that plaza down there looks pretty packed wouldn't you say?" He smirked as Beast Boy became a cheetah and chased after it with Starfire in aerial pursuit.

"Bad luck huh? See ya snotbrains." Gizmo grinned and turned on his jetpack, all of the HIVE five took off in different directions and just Cyborg and Robin alone couldn't follow them all.

OoOoOo

"You know what I miss about being a villain?" Jinx panted as she ran underneath Raven in an attempt to keep up, unlike the half demon she actually had to jump over and run around stuff to keep up and it was starting to wear her out.

"The free diamonds?" Raven guessed.

"No, much… less… running. You did things at your… own time… unless you were running away." Jinx panted as she tried to keep up.

"I can see how that'd be nice." Raven smiled down at her wryly.

OoOoOo

"Did you catch any of them?" Robin panted as he returned to the front of the store to find an out of breath Cyborg already there.

"No, you?" He asked worn out.

"Nada." Robin said shaking his head.

OoOoOo

Jinx stopped and scanned the skies, she'd finally lost Raven, who knew she could fly so fast? Jinx pulled out a map, she'd not spent much time in this area of the city and didn't know the way. With a smile she tucked the map away, secure in the knowledge that she knew the way. Jinx set off at a run, she didn't have much time.

OoOoOo

The giant green and black mammoth that was Beast Boy just managed to slow the bus down before it hit the previously packed plaza, at least Starfire had gotten everyone out of the way.

"Why do they always find the biggest hill in Jump to do this on? And why do they build big public spaces at the bottom of them?!" Beast boy panted as he turned back into his human form, he considered having serious words with the Jump city planning council about that.

"I am afraid I do not know Beast Boy." Starfire agreed as she landed next to him.

"Nice try losers!" A far too familiar voice shouted from across the plaza. Both Titans gawped at the figure of Jinx standing on a platform high above the plaza, the pink horns of hair, the clothes, the voice, it was unmistakably Jinx. She waved a hand and a huge explosion in the plaza sent them flying backwards in a shower of rubble.

OoOoOo

Kid Flash reappeared exhausted outside the jewellery shop to find Cyborg, Robin, Starfire and Beast Boy all talking and shouting angrily.

"What's going on?" He asked wearily.

"We saw Jinx!" Starfire shouted angrily.

"You can't have!" Cyborg snapped back.

"She tried to kill us dude!" Beast boy yelled at Cyborg.

"Whoa whoa, what?" Kid Flash asked confused.

"They're saying Jinx is back with the HIVE five and tried to kill them when the bus got down to the plaza back there." Cyborg explained.

"I'm not just saying it, it happened! How else to you explain the bomb site that is that place down there if nothing happened?!" Beast Boy growled. Kid Flash disappeared and re-appeared in a matter of seconds.

"It looks like a bomb hit it, are you really sure it wasn't a bomb?" Kid Flash asked hopefully.

"Oh yes, a bomb went off just as Jinx waved her hands and called us losers, massive co-incidence I'm sure." Beast Boy rolled his eyes.

"I told you she was bad." Robin pointed out triumphantly.

"What about Raven?" Kid Flash asked with a frown.

"What about me?" Raven asked landing by the other Titans with a completely soaked Jinx behind her.

"For the record, exploding fire hydrants and trying to control them is no way as easy as it sounds." Jinx muttered trying to drain some water out of her hair.

"Sorry we're so late, Jinx got attacked by some over excited orphans." Raven smirked.

"Don't laugh! The little buggers bit me!" Jinx shouted irritated.

"Come off it, we saw you, you weren't saving orphans you were trying to kill us." Beast Boy shouted at Jinx feeling incredibly sick of the whole charade she was apparently putting on.

"Wh-what?" Jinx blinked surprised.

"They're saying they saw you Jinx, that you blew up that whole plaza down there." Kid Flash said seriously, he watched Jinx levelly for any sign of defeat and tried to ignore the cold sensation that was building at the bottom of his stomach.

"What? That's crazy, she was with me on the other side of town the whole time!" Raven replied for her, barely able to believe her ears.

"You had your eyes on her the whole time?" Robin demanded flatly, already knowing the answer.

"Of course not, we were putting out a fire you know. But I'd have known if she'd have left, certainly for the amount of time it would have taken her to get all the way down here and back, she couldn't have made it down here in time." Raven pointed out.

"Exactly, just being around Kid Flash doesn't give you his powers." Cyborg agreed.

"Thankyou." Jinx said staring at Starfire and Beast Boy, they were the last people she'd have expected to doubt her.

"We know what we saw Jinx." Starfire said firmly.

"Look, I'll even check the security cameras." Cyborg said pulling up the data on his arm, "Damn, they're not working, you can't even see the bus go by." Cyborg muttered annoyed.

"How convenient." Robin said raising an eyebrow.

"Jinx, did you do it?" Kid Flash asked grabbing Jinx's hands in his own and making her look at him.

"No, if I had I wouldn't come back here and pretend that I hadn't, returning to the scene of the crime is the dumbest thing a person can do." Jinx frowned.

"That's what you were doing when I saw you the first time." Kid Flash smiled slightly.

"That's because I was trying to catch you." Jinx said rolling her eyes.

"You met her at a CRIME SCENE?! WHY on earth didn't you throw her in jail?!" Robin yelled in disbelief.

"Uhm, because… I… uh…" Kid Flash grinned hopelessly, he really didn't want his answer to be 'because she was cute' Robin would surely beat him to death for that one.

"Look, I mean it, I didn't do this. There must be some other explanation." Jinx said looking at Kid Flash earnestly.

"That's enough for me." He smiled gently.

"You're being an idiot about this Flash, and it's gonna come back and bite you in the ass and when it does I'm gonna say 'I told you so'." Robin snapped angrily as he stormed off shortly followed by Starfire and Beast Boy.

"So much for proving myself huh?" Jinx murmured to Kid Flash, he squeezed her hands reassuringly.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long but it had to be just PERFECT, so let me know what all of you think!

Jinx sat in her room in silence so the whooshing noise the door made as it opened was all the more pronounced, Jinx turned her head to see Raven and Cyborg at the entranceway, she warily waved them in. Cyborg sat down on the edge of her bed, the weight of this action caused Jinx's edge of the mattress to rise up a few inches and slide her down into the middle of the bed. Raven stayed standing stoically by the door.

"Uh… hi?" Jinx offered after some time had passed with no one saying anything.

"I don't believe you did it." Cyborg said simply.

"Neither do I." Raven agreed.

"I did all the math, there's no way you could have gotten there and back in time without anyone else seeing you." Cyborg said hopefully.

"That sounds like the kind of thing that should convince Robin." Jinx said, feeling the falseness of the words as they came out of her mouth.

"Yeah, but he's so convinced he saw you at that parade and with BB and Star saying they saw you and you attacked them no less, there's nothing in the world that could convince him of anything else." Cyborg said with a sigh.

"He's wrong though, and I think he even suspects it. You're not that kind of person." Raven said flatly.

"What kind of person? A crook? Maybe not now, but I was." Jinx said frowning; even if it wasn't helping her case she wasn't going to let them be deluded about her, she wasn't above stealing, even now. If need be to stop a criminal, she'd steal, intimidate and various other criminal things to get her way, just now her way happened to be… well… Kid Flash's way.

"No, it's not your style, gloating maybe, but you'd not come back and act like you'd not done anything to mess with us, what good would it do you?" Cyborg clarified Raven's point.

"So the main pin of your argument is that I'm too cool to do it?" Jinx smirked.

"They've got that part right at least." Kid Flash smiled from his new place at the door, Jinx hadn't even heard him arrive.

"See ya later Jinx." Cyborg said getting up and making his way to the door, he knew he should give Kid Flash and Jinx space.

"I'll bring you some food later; it'd make things worse you coming down with Beast Boy in the mood he's in. I'll see if I can make him see sense but I wouldn't hold your breath, he's never seen any yet." Raven said rolling her eyes.

"Hey gorgeous." Kid Flash grinned as the door slid closed behind him.

"Hey." Jinx said flatly.

"Still ticked about earlier?" Kid Flash asked sitting down on the edge of Jinx's bed.

"Yeah, I just feel bad, I'm not exactly making this whole becoming a hero thing easy for you am I?" Jinx sighed and leant her head back onto the wall tiredly.

"It's okay." He replied simply.

"No it's not," Jinx frowned with her eyes closed, "I'm screwing everything up here. Maybe I should just leave Jump, make a new start in a new city, and go solo." Jinx sighed and opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling.

"What about me?" Kid Flash asked quietly after a while.

"You're fast enough to be here enough and to come and wind me up whenever you please." Jinx shrugged.

"It shouldn't have to come to that." Kid Flash said tersely, Jinx tilted her head forward at this sudden change in Kid Flash's tone, his hands were clenched tightly and he looked almost scary.

"Hey… It'll be okay." Jinx said smiling slightly at him.

"No it won't, this isn't making any sense, why is everyone saying that they saw you when it obviously wasn't you?" Kid Flash demanded shakily, he and Jinx stared at each other for a moment until Kid Flash seemed to deflate and sat hunched over with his face buried in his hands and his fingers tangled in his hair.

"We know it can't be a shape shifter, Madame Rouge is under surveillance in Europe and there aren't any others around here." Kid Flash said to the floor.

"Well surprisingly shape shifters are somewhat hard to spot." Jinx said rolling her eyes.

"That's not helpful." Kid Flash said flatly.

"Sorry. But even a shape shifter wouldn't be able to mimic me properly, the others said they'd seen me use my powers; and sure you can mimic the explosions if you placed charges in the right places and set up the area but I can't use my powers without that pink glow and that can't be copied. Not even a machine or ray gun could." Jinx said standing up with her arms folded.

"What are you trying to say?" Kid Flash asked staring at Jinx as if she'd just grown an extra head.

"I'm saying that if they saw someone who looked like me use my powers like I should do then I can't think how it could be anyone but me." She said looking at him firmly.

"B-but you didn't do it!" He shouted half begging half insisting, Jinx couldn't be the one behind it or else he'd have been wrong all along and she would have been just leading him on for her own nefarious ends all along.

"So? The point is all the evidence points to me, you'd be an idiot not to see that." Jinx said harshly, her eyes fell on Kid Flash's shaken expression and her own expression softened.

"Look, I'm not saying I did it, but if you need to arrest me don't hesitate to do it, I wouldn't hold it against you." Jinx said with a sigh.

"Don't say things like that!" Kid Flash snapped looking at Jinx hurt.

"But if things keep on going the way they are you should, there's only so long you can keep denying all this evidence." Jinx said thoughtfully, it wasn't until she heard the door click shut that she realised that Kid Flash had run off, probably crying but it was hard to get him to leave her alone any other way.

"Guess I've finally outstayed my welcome, took longer than I'd thought." Jinx murmured to herself as she pulled the packed bag out from under the bed. She turned and walked to the bathroom with the bag over her shoulder, she climbed up onto the narrow edge of the bath and opened the window and slid out of it. She closed it behind her and slung the bag over her shoulder, she was a good three or four stories up, she'd certainly hurt herself if she landed on the ground from here but it wouldn't be the first time. Aiming for the lake Jinx dived gracefully and barely broke the water's surface as she landed, some time later a soaked Jinx arrived at the other shore.

Robin rocked back on the last two legs of his chair rebelliously, he knew it drove Batman nuts when he did it and it was nice to be able to do it in his own base, it was the small defiances that made it worth it. His door opened and a huge gust of wind blew in nearly knocking him off of his chair.

"Hello Kid Flash." Robin said pulling himself forward with the tiny centimetre of his steel tipped boots that he'd managed to wedge under the desk just in time to stop the fall.

"Hey Robin." A voice sniffed from his bed, Robin remained silent until the pointed and over exaggerated sniffs and whimpers got too annoying.

"Gee Wally, is there anything wrong?" He asked monotonously without looking up from the file in his lap.

"Me and Jinx kinda had a fight." Kid Flash sniffed.

"Jinx and I." Robin corrected.

"What?" Kid Flash blinked confused.

"Nothing, what did you fight about?" Robin asked knowing he wasn't going to get out of this by ignoring his friend.

"She said I was being stupid by not suspecting her at all." Kid Flash muttered resenting Jinx's scorning of his trust of her.

"You are." Robin said flatly, Wally shot him a dark look.

"You're a real dick sometimes, no pun intended." The redhead said darkly, Robin stuck his tongue out in response.

"Look, you can keep believing that she's innocent all you want Wally, but if, or rather when, it turns out that I'm right just don't go off the deep end. I know how you deal with things like this even when it's not as serious as this, and I've never seen you this serious about a girl before. I just wish you'd picked better, you're gonna get hurt." Robin said seriously.

"That was very emotionally touching, for you at least." Kid Flash grinned broadly.

"You ARE my oldest friend." Robin snorted and went back to reading his file.

"And your best I hope." Kid Flash prodded Robin.

"Whatever." Robin said rolling his eyes, Kid Flash pouted at him but to no avail.

"Aww come on, you can say it." He cajoled him.

"I'm working here." Robin said flatly, Kid Flash sulked a little more but this seemed to get no response. Robin felt his ears pop and felt the sudden drop in temperature, he knew without looking up that he was probably in the arctic, defiantly he suppressed a shiver and turned a page in his file. A suspiciously yellow and red breeze blew his papers away leaving just a yellow post-it note in the file with the words 'say it' scrawled on it. Robin looked around but of course there was no Kid Flash to be seen but he was certainly in earshot, he grumbled irritatedly.

"FINE! YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND!" Robin shouted and was instantly obligingly returned to his room.

"Where are my papers?" He demanded looking at the still empty file, his sole reply was a disembodied laugh and a fading breeze as the door shut.

Robin waited impatiently as the alarm blared in the background, the rest of the team were waiting but the fastest member was still absent.

"I've searched the whole building six times! She's not here!" Kid Flash breathed panicky as he returned hopping from foot to foot.

"I'm incredibly overwhelmed with surprise." Robin said flatly, "look she's not here, let's just GO!" He snapped dragging Kid Flash from the building.

The HIVE five were already fleeing the scene when they arrived, the electronics shop had been completely ransacked, probably Gizmo's idea.

"This lot have been on a roll lately; let's put a stop to that. Beast Boy, Star and Raven, get up in the air and let us know where they're headed and block their paths. Cyborg you take the left side of the block in case they're headed for downtown, Kid Flash go through the alleyways as fast as you can from the side of the river and work your way back here, I'll try and track their steps and catch up to them." Robin ordered, the others all nodded and left immediately the same question lingering on all of their minds, would they run into Jinx here?

Robin ran into the alleyway next to the shop and attempted to navigate the maze that was the alleyways of the Jump city shopping district.

"Robin?" His communicator called.

"Yes Star?" He asked taking a right at the turn.

"You were meant to go left back there, and… you're not going to like this but…I see-"

"Jinx!" Kid Flash gasped as he screeched to a halt in front of her, he desperately wanted to ignore the sack slung over her shoulder.

"Please tell me you're here to catch the HIVE five." He breathed fearfully as he felt his mental foundations shaking; she said nothing but smirked crookedly and unnaturally at him.

"Wow, and they call Mammoth dumb." A nasty voice cackled from behind Jinx, Kid Flash knew without looking that it was Gizmo.

"Jinx, please… don't…" Kid Flash begged quietly.

"Hah, lookit the boy beg, Jinx really had 'im good!" a Billy guffawed behind Jinx.

"Jinx." He whispered staring into her cold eyes, they seemed almost lifeless.

"For someone so fast, you sure are slow." She taunted him, Kid Flash felt like he'd been dropped into icy water. Time seemed to slow down and he watched as the kick from Jinx's platform shoes swung towards his head, he didn't even bother to move. The blow rang in his ears and the bricks scratched his skin open at his eyebrow, Jinx leapt over him and ran off down the alleyway. The sounds of the HIVE five laughing seemed so far away as they closed in on him.

"Get away from him!" Robin shouted as he skidded around the corner.

"Aww, worried we'll hurt your little friend?" Mammoth laughed loudly.

"It's not him I'm worried about at all." Robin growled. As if on cue a red gloved hand reached up and snatched Gizmo out of the air and destroyed his backpack in less than a second and threw him painfully at a wall, Robin winced, he was sure he heard something crack. He yanked off Kyd Wykkyd's cape off of him and tore it to shreds eliminating his power's only source of shadow at midday, Kid Flash hauled him by the front of his shirt off of the ground.

"Remember when I tossed you all in the lake? That was me being incredibly nice; I don't feel so nice right now." He growled coldly and threw him shaking across the alleyway with Gizmo, he punched See-More in the side of his head neatly popping his eye out, he caught it in mid air and shoved the large orb into mammoth's mouth and pulled his fist back.

"If I punch this, it'll probably snap your skull in two. Let's find out." Kid Flash growled, ignoring See-More's shouts of not being able to see.

"Let's not." Robin said catching Kid Flash's fist as it drew back.

"Let go Robin or I'll punch him with you attached." Kid flashed warned.

"No, this isn't you Kid Flash, I'm not going to let you do this. That will kill him and we're not murderers, you know that." Robin said tightening his grip on Kid Flash's wrist.

"Why should I listen to you? You're probably over the moon about this, Robin is right, yet AGAIN." Kid Flash spat furiously.

"Do I look happy to you?" Robin challenged him aggressively.

"Let them go, I'll deal with them, they'll pay. I promise." Robin said firmly. He sensed that Kid flash was moving before he felt it, he was knocked against the wall behind him and his friend was gone in a painful bang of displaced air. Mammoth dropped shaking to the floor realising just how close he'd come to oblivion.

"I really wouldn't break out of prison any time soon, you'll be MUCH safer inside." Robin growled grabbing the unusually silent Billy Numerous by the arm as he tried to slink away down the alley.

"Please don't do anything stupid Wally." Robin prayed under his breath.


	17. Chapter 17

Jinx shifted the bag on her right shoulder to her other shoulder as she walked down the hard shoulder of the

Jinx shifted the bag on her right shoulder to her other shoulder as she walked down the hard shoulder of the motorway, she cautiously stepped slightly closer to the edge as a car roared by her. Jinx shivered as the cold air displaced by the car rushed by her, her ears distantly picked up the sound of a motorbike heading her way, it sounded like it was going fast, too fast. She looked over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at the black motorcycle heading her way, he was speeding but it wasn't her problem. A crackle of pink energy up her spine compelled her to look back just in time to see the driver heading straight for her and leaving her just enough time to jump and roll out of the way and over the grass verge.

"Jesus!" Jinx yelped as her heart beat so fast it felt as if it would burst out of her ribcage and run away from fright.

"Nope." The motorcyclist shouted over the roar of his engine as a gunned the throttle. Jinx back flipped out of the way in time, she'd been taught how to deal with heroes on motorbikes during her time in HIVE but it was usually when she was trying to flee the scene of a crime, not defend her life.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Jinx demanded as she crouched low to lower her centre of gravity. The motorcyclist remained silent and attempted to run her over again Jinx waved a hand causing the bike's tyres to explode, she'd really wanted to get further away from Jump city before she was forced to commit any crimes but this was self defence, but instead of being flung wildly from his bike the rider leapt for her, the very shock of the action caused her to be too slow in her escape. Her neck snapped as feet and knees connected with her chest and a fist connected with her cheek.

"Unf!" Jinx gasped as she hit the floor and the air forced its way out of her lungs. Her eyes widened as the guy in black leather and motorcycle helmet raised his fist to hit her again, she flicked her wrist up in an attempt to hex him senseless when something cold and metallic was snapped around her upheld wrist. She gawped at it for a second, it was a steel bracelet with a stripe of red crystal running through it; she'd know it anywhere, that was a power inhibitor. Who would be so sure of who she was and so meticulously prepared to attack her and know just how she would react?

"Robin?" Jinx said hesitantly. The masked figure paused before punching her in the face and then sliding up the visor on the black motorcycle helmet, it was indeed Robin and if looks could have killed the one Robin was giving her would have vaporised her on the spot.

"What's with the covert get up?" Jinx asked quietly, trying to sound calmer than she was.

"It's bad press for me to be seen beating criminal scum to a pulp outside city limits." Robin growled and punched her again for good measure.

"Okay! Not cool! Stop that!" Jinx yelled angrily.

"I can keep on punching you all day after what you did to Kid Flash!" Robin shouted in Jinx's face, Jinx's eyes widened.

"Wh-what happened?" Jinx breathed shakily.

"You mean what did you _do_?" Robin snapped.

"Yes, what did I do?" Jinx demanded urgently.

"What has stealing all that stuff and breaking his heart made you loose your memory?" Robin shouted in an accusing manner, on impulse he leant forward over Jinx and grabbed her bag and emptied it out, he narrowed his eyes, it contained none of the items stolen earlier.

"That proves nothing, so the rest of the HIVE five ripped you off and you ran." Robin affirmed as he turned his gaze back to a very uncomfortable looking Jinx.

"What happened?" Jinx asked quietly.

"You kicked him in the head and taunted him, saying that for someone so fast he sure was slow." He quoted, he eyed jinx suspiciously, it seemed like she was trying to keep him talking but she wasn't doing anything at all, she hadn't even tried to defend herself when he hit her, she groaned in despair and raised her hands to her face and shook her head.

"Look, this needs to end. Throw me in jail." Jinx demanded grabbing Robin's wrist, he regarded her even more suspiciously than before, he remained silent.

"Go on already! I know you've wanted to for ages, just do it!" She shouted angrily.

"Why are you so keen on going to jail?" He asked her suspiciously.

"I'm… I'm a danger to society… I'm…. schizophrenic! I'm schizophrenic, I just wake up places without knowing what I've done, that's why I don't remember the robbery and kicking Kid Flash!" Jinx exclaimed looking excited and slightly manic.

"Schizophrenic." Robin repeated flatly.

"Yes, two people in my head. You need to lock me up to stop the other one." Jinx urged him.

"Uh-huh. And who told you that you were… schizophrenic was it?" He asked slowly.

"The psych doc at the jail last time I was there." Jinx said smoothly.

"Funny that it's not in your file then isn't it?" Robin said folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at her.

"You know what doctors are like with paperwork, now come on, lock me up." Jinx said offering her wrists.

"No. I don't know what game you're playing, and for your information it's not schizophrenic, that's a common misconception, you mean multiple personality disorder, no doctor would tell you that you had one when you had the other. You're lying, I don't know why or what you've got planned but I'm not taking you to jail, get up." He frowned as he got off of Jinx and hauled her upright and dragged her to the slightly smoking bike, he inspected it, it seemed to be fine.

"Y-you're not taking me to jail?" Jinx stammered shocked.

"No, not if you want it that badly, you're up to something and I want to know what. And don't try to run, that bracelet will run enough electricity through you to at least knock you out, or maybe more, I forget; best not to try huh?" Robin said getting on the bike and pulling her on behind him.

"So you're just doing this out of paranoia and spite then?" Jinx gawped at him as he pulled his visor down.

"Pretty much." Robin shrugged as he revved the bike.

"And how do you know I'm not tricking you so you don't throw me in jail? I could be bluffing!" Jinx pointed out desperately as Robin eased the bike towards the road and waited for traffic to let him out.

"You're not smart enough for that." Robin shot back smirking at the insulted yelp that sprang from Jinx's mouth.

Robin's covert bike screeched into the basement and garage of the Titan's Tower, he quickly pulled his communicator out.

"Raven, is Kid Flash in the building?" Robin asked in his authoritarian voice.

"No, he's not come back since we last saw him Robin." Raven replied. Seemingly satisfied with this answer Robin grabbed Jinx by the cobweb-like collar of her shirt and yanked her up the short flight of stairs and into the main Titan's living area.

"Why's she not in jail?" Cyborg demanded jumping up from his place at the sofa, Beast Boy turned into a cat and hissed at Jinx.

"She'll break out and I'm not going to let that happen. Cyborg, you've still got that intelligent room prototype that can go into lockdown right? Toss her in there and throw it in lockdown, let's see her get out of that." Robin said pushing Jinx towards him roughly, Jinx stumbled from the shove but Cyborg caught her wrist and unkindly caught her by the wrist and half dragged her to the hallway.

"Aren't you going to protest your innocence? Try and trick me? Get me back for what I did to you?" Cyborg asked coldly.

"No." Jinx replied sullenly as they halted in front of a white door, Cyborg swiped his hand over the keypad and the doors whooshed open metallically, he shoved her inside, initiated the lockdown command and walked out as the doors shut behind him. Jinx stared at the cold, blank white room. There was a sparse bathroom and an uncomfortable looking bed but nothing else, even prisons had more decorations than this and they weren't so eye-scorchingly white.

Robin sighed and went back to the garage to his bike.

"Where are you going now?" Starfire called after him, Robin stopped with his helmet raised to his shoulder level.

"To go find my best friend." Robin replied quietly before donning the helmet and climbing onto the bike, Starfire winced as it screeched out of the garage; she'd never liked that sound.

Half an hour later and severely windswept from breaking the speed limit the whole way there Robin pulled up a good half mile from Wayne manor, he pulled his bike to the side of the road and walked into the woods. He followed the sound of running water until he came to a halt by a small rambling river with a derelict and rotten old wooden bridge over it, he and Wally used to come here when Wally was getting speed deprived combat training from Batman, his mentor had thought important that Wally could defend himself with or without his powers. It was a good distance from the mansion but with the height that the grand building was set on the hill above they were still easily in sight of the building and certainly of the Bat. Robin quietly walked to the edge of the river and sat next to his friend who was hunched over in silence wearing civilian clothes, most notably an oversized moth-eaten old sweater, it was one of the clothes that Wally wore when he was in a really self pitying mood, it seemed to comfort him somehow.

"Hey." He said quietly and stared forward at the river.

"Hey yourself." Wally replied hoarsely, he sounded as if he'd been crying for quite some time.

"How's your head?" Robin asked after a moment.

"Not as beat up as my heart and my pride." Wally replied bitterly, Robin looked over at him; his eyes were red and puffy. The two boys sat in silence for a while longer, Robin awkwardly put his arm around the redhead and half hugged him and half patted him on the shoulder, feeling incredibly self-aware he removed the arm unsure as to whether he'd done that right or if it'd made Wally feel any better.

"Thanks." Wally said with a sniff, he knew displays of emotion and affectionate physical gestures weren't really Robin's thing.

"No problem." Robin said desperately trying to force comforting tones into his voice. The two sat in a few more minutes of silence, broken only by the flowing sounds of the river, it was somewhat soothing.

"Feel any better?" Robin asked warily.

"I feel rotten, I feel like I've been wrung out like a sponge and I've got nothing left and I just feel so… tired. I've cried so hard I'm just more exhausted than I've ever been in my life." Wally said rubbing his eyes for the hundredth time that day and letting out a slow shuddering breath.

"Wanna ride back on my bike with me? It'd save you running." Robin offered.

"'k. Think I might sleep for a year though afterwards." Wally said warningly.

"Fine with me." Robin smiled standing up and hauling Wally to his feet.

On the ride back in which Robin didn't break the speed limit he could hear and feel Wally crying into his back every time the wind on the highway got so loud that he shouldn't have been able to hear it, he knew better than to say anything; Wally had always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve but he seemed to feel uncomfortable openly crying in front of Robin, almost as if he felt guilty that he could cry so easily and Robin couldn't, he never had since his parent's death, the tears just wouldn't come. He envied Wally in a way for being so well-adjusted with his emotions, even if it did tend to mean that Wally got his heart broken more often than Robin but still he said nothing, a vast amount of their relationship as friends was built on what they didn't say but silently meant, it seemed to work well somehow.

By the time they arrived back at the tower Wally was dry eyed and the only sign that he'd cried at all was the residual redness around his eyes but even that was fading.

"I'm gonna go to bed." Wally said rubbing his eyes, Robin nodded and slowly and wearily Wally left in stark contrast to the normal ear-splitting bang of displaced air that he left when he exited a room. Robin breathed out slowly feeling cold and empty inside, he hoped Wally would feel better in the morning.

A/N: Heh, sorry for the delay people I was buried under a landslide of uni coursework but now I'm back, and I hope this chapter has relieved me of my stigma of being a Robin hater, he's a nice guy really under all those layers and layers of uncommunicative jerk. -


	18. Chapter 18

Robin watched with interest as the milk and half chewed cereal arced through the air and guessed impressed that it had made it

Robin watched with interest as the milk and half chewed cereal arced through the air and guessed impressed that it had made it a good six meters, he then turned his attention back to the milk spewer in question.

"What do you MEAN she's here?!" Kid Flash demanded almost hysterically.

"Robin brought her back last night and locked her in a secure room." Raven replied flatly as always.

"YOU WHAT!? WHY?!" Kid Flash screamed at Robin at a now hysterical level.

"She'd escape jail." Robin replied simply and went back to his own cereal.

"But why HERE? What's wrong with you?! I can't- I can't do this, oh godohgodohgodwhat'llIdoshe'shereshe'shereohgod" Kid Flash said in a stream of words as he began hyperventilating, Robin reached over and smacked Kid Flash around the head, hard. The stunned boy sat in hyperventilating silence for a few seconds.

"Thankyou, I needed that. But seriously, what the HELL Robin?!" Kid Flash demanded angrily.

"She'll break out of jail in no time, and she was pretty demanding that I take her to jail so I'm pretty sure she had some escape plan set up; she needs to pay for what she did. Plus she knows a whole lot on us that I'm not happy with her spreading around the wider criminal community." Robin said as rationally as always.

"You say community like they have bake sales or something Robin, they're just crooks." Beast Boy giggled.

"Man, now I'm hungry imagining an evil bake sale. They do say the dark side has cookies though." Cyborg laughed loudly.

"Geek." Beast Boy snickered shaking his head.

"Jesus, I'm fairly sure holding someone without trail and against their will is illegal you know." Kid Flash pointed out.

"So is being a vigilante. What's your point?" Robin said pointedly.

"Urgh, nothing, arguing with you is completely pointless." Kid Flash sighed holding his hands up in defeat.

"I learnt from the best, and you're cleaning that up by the way." Robin added, gesturing to the milk and cereal stream with a spoon. Kid Flash pulled a face at Robin.

Jinx paced the room nervously until her ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps, she strained her ears to listen, too quiet for Cyborg and too fast for Robin, Starfire always flew and Raven didn't live down this side of the building and it was _walking_ so there was no way it was Kid Flash. She quickly wrenched the nightstand from the floor which she'd spent hours unscrewing with her now very broken fingernails, she dashed to the edge of the door and held the stand high above her head, the door open and she swung it down violently. The furniture seemed to explode in front of her and she found herself pinned up against a wall before she could even blink with her arm wrenched painfully up her back.

"Agh!" She yelped in pain, no one was that fast, no one… except…

"Kid Flash?" She breathed, the grip on her wrist tightened but there was no mistaking those hot hands on her cold ones.

"I- I didn't realise it was you, I thought-" She trailed off before finding herself flung roughly across the room.

"You just can't stop lying can you?" He shouted angrily at her, she stared at him dumbstruck.

"Was anything you ever said to me true or can you really just not lie and hurt people?" He snapped venomously, Jinx's eyes widened, she'd never seen his eyes filled with so much… so much hate.

"I- I-" Jinx stammered before deciding silence was best in this situation.

"What? No excuses? No lies? No 'it wasn't me'? Come on! You were full of them earlier when you thought you could just do whatever the hell you liked and make fools of us, of me." Kid Flash shouted at her, Jinx looked away.

"You know, you were right, I was stupid to ever trust you. Stupid to ever think you were anything more than criminal scum, I should have just thrown you in prison the moment I laid eyes on you, meeting you was the worst thing that's ever happened to me." He growled, Jinx flinched at this.

"You're going to be in here for ever you know, Robin's never going to let you leave. And you deserve every second." Kid Flash spat before vanishing in a blur of red and yellow, the door hissed shut. Kid Flash leant on the shut door and let out a shuddering breath, he forced himself not to wince when he heard the sound of the sob from inside the room.

"Just crocodile tears, she's trying to manipulate you again." He said under his breath.

"She's not." A voice came from next to him, he looked over to see a serious looking Raven staring at him with purple eyes.

"Don't tell me you still think she's innocent after everything that's happened!" Kid Flash snapped.

"I… I'm not sure, maybe what Robin said she told his is right, maybe there are more than one of her in there." Raven said uncertainly.

"How can you say that? After everything she's done to me? After how much she's hurt me! Do you even know what that feels like?" He demanded angrily, Raven glowered at him for his implicit dig at her apparent lack of emotion.

"I'm an empath, I feel all emotion, just because I can't show mine doesn't mean I don't have any. And yes, you're hurt and angry and you feel betrayed but I can feel Jinx's heart breaking in there from out here." Raven said emphatically, Kid Flash glared at her furiously.

"Is everything okay?" A firm voice asked from behind Kid Flash, it was Robin.

"Everything's fine." Raven muttered darkly turning away.

"No it's not, she doesn't think Jinx did it!" Kid Flash said accusatorially, Robin said nothing on this.

"You've been in there haven't you?" He asked Kid Flash, looking from him to the door and back again.

"Yes, and shouted everything at her too, she deserved it." Kid Flash said slightly more angrily than he'd intended to, Robin said nothing but simply stared at him levelly.

"Okay, fine, I know, I know. Not a healthy way to deal with stuff, I just- I REALLY needed to get that off of my chest." Kid Flash pouted and looked away.

"And I bet you feel a thousand times better for it too huh?" Robin said calmly.

"No." the redhead sighed, "nothing I do seems to make it feel better. I loved her Robin, really loved her, how can anyone see that in another person and just use them and throw them away just like that?" Kid Flash asked sadly.

"I wish I knew, but I've never understood that. I guess some people can just turn off that ability to care how other people feel." Robin shrugged wishing that he had a better answer for his friend.

"I'm gonna go clear my head." Kid Flash muttered before disappearing in his trademark bang of displaced air.

"Bye." Robin said to the empty hallway.

Kid Flash sat morosely on the top of the Sphinx, the change of scenery was nice and the run had tired him out a little bit but it hadn't done much to improve his mood. But the way he felt right now, nothing would. Reluctantly he stood up again and turned around picking a direction and then did what any Flash did best, he ran. By the time he stumbled into the Titans Tower in the early hours of the morning he'd never been so exhausted in his life, he barely had the energy to pull himself up the stairs. Kid Flash couldn't help but feel a sense of achievement as he collapsed downwards onto his bed and fell into what he hope would be a dreamless sleep, at least it seemed he could do some things right.

"Hey sleepy head." A soft voice greeted him as he opened his eyes blearily, waves of pink hair and pale skin greeted him along with a mischievous smile.

"Hey beautiful." He murmured back and shuffled over to her side of the bed.

"Mmm, your side of the bed's nice and cool…" He smiled nuzzling his face into the hollow between her neck and shoulder.

"And you're all gross and sweaty!" She yelped shoving him away playfully.

"Aww, I thought you liked me all hot and sweaty." He grinned down at her lecherously.

"Behave." She scolded him with a smile.

"Mmm, never." He grinned before swooping down for a kiss.

"Hey, Wally?" She asked him seriously.

"Yeah?" He replied pulling back to look down at her, at his Jinx, she smiled back up at him.

"I love you, you know that right?" She said stroking his face.

"Ah!" Kid Flash yelped jumping bolt upright in bed his heart pounding, finding the room empty and dark he flopped back down on his bed with a sigh, that dream had felt so real. He'd felt so contented, so warm, so happy and he really believed her when she said she loved him.

"Why are you torturing me subconscious? What did I ever do to you?" He moaned burying his face in his pillow. With a sad sigh he turned on his side and looked at the clock, it read 3:30 AM, barely an hour since he'd got back.

"C'mon, sleep." He urged himself as he stared wide awake at his clock. He watched patiently as the minutes ticked by, and then half an hour passed, and then an hour. With a frustrated growl at his lack of sleep and already aware that he'd feel awful for it the next day, Kid Flash threw off the covers and padded softly out of his room barefoot. He paused at the white locked door, temptation niggled at him and finally he found himself unable to resist. He pressed his palm up against the scanner and the door slid open silently, he cautiously walked through wary of any more furniture that might try and attack him at the behest of Jinx but found none. The room was dark and clean, the small cleaning robots had cleared away any debris from earlier in the day, one of Cyborg's methods to try and reduce the escape possibilities by limiting any materials available for such a plan. And there, peacefully curled up in bed with the covers pulled tightly around her, was Jinx. He walked quietly up to her and looked down at her sleeping face. Her features were relaxed and her hair soft and wavy out of it's usual horns, what little makeup she wore was gone and she was breathing gently. Kid Flash felt his heart melt slightly, how could this girl, this beautiful creature hurt him? How could he ever feel anything for her but love? But she'd hurt him, badly, and deliberately it seemed, he sighed and leaned over her, brushing her hair from her face.

"It's not fair, you made me love you and now I'm meant to hate you, I want to hate you; but whatever spell you wove on me won't let me." He breathed before turning on his heel and walking out of the room, he winced as the door clicked shut behind him. Knowing that he wasn't going to get any sleep at all today he wandered downstairs to watch TV, a few minutes later a sleepy Jinx blearily opened her eyes and looked around the room feeling certain someone had just been there.

"Morning!" Robin greeted him cheerfully as he walked through the living room.

"Kill me now." Kid Flash begged from where he lay on the sofa.

"Whoa, what happened to you?" Robin asked raising an eyebrow as he looked at his worn out friend, he had huge dark circles under his eyes as if he'd been awake for weeks, and knowing Kid Flash's fast metabolism and how much sleep he needed a night in proportion to how much he could do in a day, it probably felt like it too.

"Couldn't sleep. Dreams." Kid Flash grunted.

"Ah. I won't ask." Robin nodded and headed over to the kitchen to get himself breakfast.

"Coffee?" Kid Flash begged, Robin considered this.

"In light of previous experiences… no. Definitely not, and never." Robin answered firmly, a caffeinated Flash of any generation was not a fun thing to deal with. The blaring alarm and red lights suddenly filled the room and Robin sighed, what kind of person committed a crime this early in the morning? He hadn't even had breakfast yet and it was the most important meal of the day.

"Mrh, someone will pay for this. I'm hungry." Robin growled and headed for the door as the others quickly entered the room.

"You stay here, guard the tower and try to sleep. And stay out of the coffee." Robin warned as he left the tower.

"Yessir." Kid Flash mumbled and rolled face down in the sofa praying for sleep to come.

Some time later when Wally had actually managed to get off to sleep he was startled awake by a sound, it sounded like someone trying, and failing, to be stealthy in the nearby vicinity. He jumped up and dashed around the room trying to find the source of the noise, he vaguely heard a thump and some muffled cursing and running feet somewhere. His eyes widened, Jinx! She was trying to escape, she'd probably used her powers to keep him up all night so he'd be too tired to stop her! With an angry growl he burst upwards into the containment room to find a slightly startled looking Jinx playing cat's cradle with her tied up bootlaces.

"…yes?" She asked cautiously.

"You were escaping, I heard you." He said looking at her suspiciously.

"It's news to me." Jinx replied blankly from where she sat cross-legged on the white bed.

"Oh." He mumbled feeling foolish and looking down at the ground.

"Unless you're planning on letting me out or shouting at me again I'd appreciate you leaving." Jinx said coldly and turned back to her game, Kid Flash shuffled out of the room. As he made his way back to the sofa he mused that it might have been someone trying to get in rather than out.

"Nah," He muttered to himself, "who'd be dumb enough to do that? Plus the security system would have told me." He yawned and flopped back down on the sofa and back to sleep.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: I'm really sorry with what's going on with the previous chapter, there's some kind of bug in the system that keeps replic

A/N: I'm really sorry with what's going on with the previous chapter, there's some kind of bug in the system that keeps replicating parts of sentences and screwing around with some of my words, I've no idea why it's happening as it's not like that on the original document.

Jinx sat morosely in the white room that she was locked in, she'd been in there for days now and she'd not seen anyone since Kid Flash burst in looking like hell yesterday. God, the whiteness of the room was driving her mad, **everything** was white, she couldn't decide if it felt more like she was in a nuthouse or an iPod commercial. Probably not much difference she mused as she picked at her white clothes, they were clearly trying to drive her mad.

"We're not." Raven answered as she entered the room.

"That's really off putting you know." Jinx said narrowing her eyes and objecting to the empath reading her mind, she forcibly suppressed all her own stray thoughts and emotions, if Raven was here to interrogate her she'd better be careful.

"Brought you food." Raven said offering the tray and placing it on the irritatingly white nightstand.

"Thanks." Jinx replied and looked up at Raven from her position on the floor.

"The others are all out." Raven commented and sat down.

"And Robin's left you in here with big bad old me?" Jinx asked rolling her eyes. "I could knock you out and escape and you'd have no one to help you." Jinx grinned in an unhinged way.

"I doubt you'd do that." Raven said levelly, Jinx was suddenly reminded of Kid Flash and the memory of him in her hallway in the HIVE five base kissing her wrist and assuring her that he trusted her flashed into her mind unabated.

"You shouldn't trust me so much." Jinx muttered leaning back and forcing down the thought, she watched Raven's slow smile.

"So you say, anyway, I could easily defend myself against you." Raven smiled at her.

"You're reading my mind aren't you?" Jinx said narrowing her eyes at Raven, the empath smirked at this, Jinx was quick.

"A little, I _am_ supposed to be interrogating you aren't I? Why else would Robin let me in here with you?" Raven replied simply.

"Fair point." Jinx nodded.

"I thought you'd feel more hostile to Robin after all of this, after all he wasn't exactly welcoming to you, and he's apparently been proved right about you, aren't you even a little mad?" Raven asked sensing Jinx's mind. Jinx shrugged at this and looked away.

"Aaah, I see, you actually respect his skills as a leader and you know you'd feel the same if the situation was reversed." Raven smiled slowly, she wasn't sure if Robin would take that as a compliment or not.

"Stop that." Jinx snapped looking back with a glare.

"I'll stop if you just tell me what's really been going on." Raven retorted, Jinx looked back at the wall and forced down the bubble of thoughts threatening to arise to the surface.

"I know you didn't do all the things people said they saw you do, and not just because you were with me for one of them, so I want to know why you supposedly confessed to Robin and demanded to be taken to jail and haven't tried to escape from here. Except for attacking Kid Flash that is." Raven said leadingly, she felt the memory light up in Jinx's mind and grabbed it.

"You didn't think it was him, or any of us for that matter!" Raven said triumphantly, Jinx's head snapped back and she glared at her furiously.

"Get. OUT!" She shouted jumping up. Sounds suddenly made themselves apparent on the edge of Jinx's hearing, she dashed to the door and pressed her ear to it.

"You can't get out like that you know." Raven said getting up, her eyebrows arched when she saw how pale Jinx had gone, the girl grabbed Raven's wrist forcefully.

"Get this off of me!" She demanded waving the power inhibitor on her wrist in Raven's face.

"You know I can't." Raven replied wrenching her own wrist back.

"Then let me out! I need to get out of here!" Jinx snapped angrily.

"No! Why are you do desperate to get free all of a sudden, you've not tried to escape once until now." Raven said her eyes narrowing at the pink haired sorceress. Jinx growled and grabbed Raven's cloak and swung her at the wall, she just managed to bubble herself in dark energy and slip through the wall in time to avoid crashing into it. She stumbled on the other side and narrowed her eyes at the door for the room, she could feel Jinx's anxiety thrumming all through the room even from outside. What was she so nervous about? And why had she suddenly freaked out? Raven shut her eyes and chanted in the hopes of being able to pry into Jinx's mind, she felt her awareness of her surroundings fade and she started to become surrounded by the darkness she was accustomed to before entering the mind of another. She felt out for a weakness in Jinx's mind to find her way in, it wasn't easy she was certainly a well defended person, but there were some weaknesses in her defences, most of them surrounded by memories of Kid Flash, he'd obviously done a good job at getting her to open up to him even if he had unknowingly destroyed a lot of her mental barriers that would have stopped a psychic like Raven getting into the deeper layers of Jinx's mind. She felt that she was clear enough past the defences to begin looking in earnest for answers when the alarm in the tower rung loudly and jolted her out of her concentrated state. She glanced up at the alarm above her which suddenly petered out almost as if it had run out of batteries. Raven narrowed her eyes and ran off to the control room.

"And it was just exploded like this when you got here?" Robin asked looking at the debris filled room that had previously been the Tower's internal alarm system.

"Yeah, and the alarm went off just before and died so I came here to see what the problem was." Raven nodded as she pulled out a spring that was embedded into the wall behind her.

"It looks like an internal fault of some kind, not that I can really tell with all the pieces exploded everywhere, but I can't see any evidence of any other cause. Something must have just overloaded." Cyborg sighed knowing this meant a whole lot of work for him.

"If I didn't know that Jinx's power inhibitor was working at full strength I would almost say this was her work." Robin mused looking at the devastation.

"And I was trying to get into her head at the time, I'd have known if it'd been her." Raven nodded.

"Did you find anything out?" Robin asked looking over at Raven.

"Aside from the fact that she respects you as an equal as a leader? When she attacked Kid Flash she didn't think it was him, or any of us, she thought it was someone else but I couldn't get to who she thought it was before she shut me out. She does still love Kid Flash though, she never faked that. And I found no sense of her mind being fractured but equally I didn't find any sign that she did any of the things that we've shut her in there for and yet she refuses to say that she's innocent. It doesn't make any sense." Raven sighed.

"Don't let Kid Flash hear you say that, he's messed up enough as is." Robin warned.

"So, no protests? I thought you'd be shouting about how guilty she is, don't tell me flattery has dissuaded you." Raven smirked at him, Robin laughed quietly and shook his head.

"I trust your skill, and to be honest, something feels really wrong here. It all made sense until she begged me to take her to jail, and I don't think it was so she could escape it regardless of what I said. And if she had been working with the HIVE five, sure, pretend she was one of us to humiliate us and destroy us from the inside, but they would have worked out we were keeping her here and not in jail and tried to break her out by now. And why would she stop protesting her innocence now when she's been doing it every moment up until I caught her on the side of the road? And I've no idea how she got that far away from the city so fast unless she hitched all the way there and got out and walked just before I caught her. We're missing some really big part of this puzzle." Robin sighed shaking his head.

"You think this was an attempt to break her out? Jinx heard something a few moments before the alarm went off, she went really pale and then threw me out of there, she was screaming at me to undo her power inhibitor or let her go." Raven informed Robin, he thought on this.

"She looked scared?" Robin asked curiously, Raven nodded at this.

"See, that makes no sense, if she was about to be broken out by the HIVE five she'd have wanted you in that secure room rather than putting you between the people breaking her out of there and herself and why would she be scared?" Robin growled irritated that this puzzle was beating him.

"Maybe the plan relied on no one else being here? We've not left her alone in the building since we caught her." Cyborg chipped in.

"Maybe, but for the HIVE five Raven on her own, especially distracted, would be no problem at all, none of us would be if we were caught on our own, if anything they'd be happy to catch one of us with her, to hurt us and release her." Robin pointed out.

"Well Jinx obviously knows what's going on, but I'm having real trouble getting it out of her, and if she is innocent like she seems to be then I've no right to keep prying into her mind." Raven sighed.

"I know Raven, I just hope we'll figure this out before it's too late." Robin muttered and headed for the door, leaving Cyborg to fix the machinery.

Jinx raised her arm high above her head and brought her wrist crashing down onto the headboard of her bed for the hundredth time that day, she winced as the pain shot through it and up her arm, filled with determination again she raised her wrist high into the air and smashed it down again just as the door to her room opened.

"What are you doing?" Kid Flash asked wide eyed and worried, momentarily forgetting that he was meant to hate Jinx.

"Trying to get this damn thing off." Jinx muttered and smashed her wrist down again. Kid Flash bolted forward and grabbed her arm before she could lift it up again to smack it against something else.

"Stop it!" He shouted staring at her wrist which was already showing blue and black bruises, he squeezed it slightly, it was swollen and sore, Jinx flinched at this.

"You're gonna end up breaking something." He scolded her, Jinx stared defiantly up at him.

"What do you care? You hate me remember? I'm the enemy." Jinx said coldly.

"Well that was your stupid decision not mine, will you just stop trying to break your wrist already?" Kid Flash sighed wearily.

"I'm trying to break this dumb thing, not my wrist. Take it off and I'll stop." Jinx reasoned looking back up at Kid Flash.

"You know I can't do that, you'd hex me and run off." Kid Flash sighed sitting next to her and putting his head in his hands.

"I won't, I promise." Jinx smiled at him hopefully.

"Pft. Yeah right, hexing me and running away is practically your default state of being." Kid Flash snorted as a small smile crept onto his face.

"Okay okay, you've got me there." Jinx laughed happily holding her hands up in defeat, silence fell between the two of them at the sudden intrusion of normality and friendliness into what was meant to be an uncomfortable situation, the moment passed and Jinx sighed.

"Look, Wally, listen to me. I know you've no reason to believe me and even every reason not to believe me but I _need_ you to get this off of me, I won't try to escape, I won't hex you or anything or anyone else. Just please listen to me for once and take this off of me, just… trust me." Jinx said seriously.

"No, how dare you ask me to trust you after everything you've done to me?" Kid Flash said glaring at her, Jinx sighed exasperatedly at this.

"Because it's that important, just… please? Please do this for me and I'll never ask you for anything ever again, I won't even try to talk to you if you don't want me to." Jinx begged holding her wrist out for him.

"Why? Why is this so important?" Kid Flash asked narrowing his eyes at her.

"I- I can't tell you, just do this for me." Jinx pleaded.

"Is this just so you can escape? Is that what all that damaged machinery was about? Are people trying to break you out of here? Is that it?" Kid Flash demanded angry that she could try and manipulate him so easily.

"No! Look, if this was about getting out it wouldn't matter if this was on or not! If I got out of here I could get a set of decent lock picks and have this thing off me in under ten minutes!" Jinx snapped frustrated.

"Then why?" Kid Flash demanded getting up from the bed and turning to face her.

"I told you, I can't tell you why!" Jinx shouted at him.

"Then no!" Kid Flash shouted back and turned to the door.

"You don't hate me!" Jinx shouted at him, Kid Flash froze at this, "You want to, you know you should, but you can't. It doesn't feel right when you try. That must tell you something." Jinx said quietly, Kid Flash said nothing so Jinx continued.

"I know you feel hurt over everything that's happened, and you've no logical reason to feel otherwise, but I know you don't hate me, so please, just do this one thing for me." Jinx said getting up and offering her bruised wrist with the power inhibitor on, Kid Flash looked at it and then at her.

"How can you manipulate me so easily? Like it was nothing to you? I'm just some puppet to you aren't I? Pull the right string, tell the right lie and suddenly I'll bend over backwards for you." He said looking at her coldly.

"No, that's not it." Jinx tried desperately but Kid Flash cut her off.

"Stop it, just… stop it." He said before disappearing in a big gust of wind.

"You'll regret that." Jinx said quietly to the empty room before returning to attempting to destroy the band on her wrist, or her wrist itself, whichever came first.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: This chapter is totally and completely dedicated to Hotspur and our shared pastime of torturing poor Kid Flash (it's just

A/N: This chapter is totally and completely dedicated to Hotspur and our shared pastime of torturing poor Kid Flash (it's just so FUN!)

"Argh! This is pointless! Every time we arrest someone another alarm goes off elsewhere!" Cyborg shouted frustrated, it wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that half of the alarms were false ones set off by criminals who promptly vanished.

"We've got to keep doing this." Robin said running towards the next alarm.

"But we've been doing this for nearly an hour!" Beast Boy panted trying to keep up.

"Well sorry we dragged you from tower guard duty but there's no way we could have done this if there had been any less than all of us out here." Kid Flash said running backwards and rolling his eyes at Beast Boy. Robin jerked to a halt.

"It's not like we've even seen the same criminal twice, and it's never been more than one person, and all one after the other, just to keep us running around the city almost." Robin murmured standing still.

"What? So this is some sort of villain conspiracy to make us run a marathon?" Beast boy snorted rolling his eyes.

"No, I don't know, just something really doesn't feel right here!" Robin said shaking his head furiously, he could almost feel the missing puzzle piece in his grasp, he was so close.

"Gah, forget it, we've got to get moving." Robin sighed and started to run again, suddenly Kid Flash's hand was on his chest holding him in place.

"What?" He asked staring at the boy who looked immensely pale and wide eyed, he followed Kid Flash's look and saw two shady looking characters trying desperately to close a dumpster lid, unbeknownst to them something was hanging out still and blocking their way, it looked awfully like a leg, a long purple and black striped leg with an oversized boot on the end. Kid Flash was over there in a bang, both villains thrown across the alleyway and he was already scrabbling at the dumpster, pulling desperately on the exposed leg to pull her out.

"Jinx!" He yelped desperately, her skin felt so cold, far colder than it should have, he heard the other Titans arrive just behind him as an almightly snap and rip echoed down the alleyway as the slender leg came loose from the hip that had previously contained it. Kid Flash fell backwards and screamed holding Jinx's leg.

"Whoa whoa, calm down!" Cyborg yelped grabbing it off of him, "It's not real, it's robotic." He said soothingly and showed the exposed wires and cables to prove it.

"Since when did Jinx have a robotic leg?" Beast Boy blinked confused whilst Kid Flash sat on the floor hyperventilating.

"She does not, I am sure of it." Starfire replied equally confused.

"But, why would anyone make a copy of a leg that looked just like Jinx's?" Cyborg mused as Robin heaved open the dumpster lid and began to throw trashbags aside.

"So the rest of the copy could walk." Robin replied hauling the rest of the robot out of the dumpster.

"What on earth?" Raven breathed as she took in the sight of the robotic Jinx sitting one legged on the floor, propped up against the side of the dumpster.

"It looks broken." Robin said flatly as he poked the robot and got no response.

"No, I think it's just out of juice." Cyborg said leaning forward and giving the robot a jolt of power from his battery, the robot's head snapped up and it's eyes focused on Cyborg.

"Nice try losers!" It shouted loudly in a voice that was unmistakably Jinx's, one of it's hands flew up and the skin of it's palm suddenly flashed blindingly brightly pink for a half a second. Beast Boy and Starfire both went pale.

"That is… exactly how… oh my." Starfire stammered.

"I kept saying there was no way she could have got across town in time." Raven murmured.

"This thing has a combat mode and everything, it's not very advanced, in fact the whole thing apart from it's appearance has been salvaged from other things almost like someone just threw everything they had together to make it in a hurry." Cyborg commented as he scanned it.

"But why would someone make this?" Kid Flash demanded his voice hitching.

"To trick us…" Robin said slowly as the idea wormed its way into his mind.

"What?" Kid Flash said almost too quietly to hear.

"To trick us into thinking that it was Jinx committing those crimes when it was this with the HIVE five, that's why she always looked so confused when we accused her, she had no idea what was going on. It wasn't acting. That's why she told me to take her to prison, that's where the HIVE five wanted her, but she could escape prison… it'd be a fairer fight. But instead we've thrown her into a secure room with one way in and out and a power inhibitor that can't be broken, it was just one big set up and we've put her in the worst place possible for it." Robin said going pale, his ears popped painfully as Kid Flash disappeared.

"We've been gone an hour, who knows what's gone wrong by now, but we've got a fellow Titan in danger, Raven get us there as fast as you can." Robin said turning to her, Raven nodded and spread her hands out wide and engulfed them all in shadow, in barely a thirty seconds they were touching ground outside the tower, Kid Flash was nowhere to be seen but from the looks of the distressed and still swaying plants nearby he'd been by recently. Robin dashed inside to see Kid Flash holding Red X as high up the wall as he could.

"Where is she?!" He yelled at him, Red X simply laughed and said nothing Kid Flash yelled in frustration before throwing him violently across the room.

"You make sure none of them escape I'll find her." Kid Flash ordered before zipping off to search the building at high speed.

"Beast Boy, go join him see if you can sniff her out." Robin ordered turning to the green changeling.

"That'll be a little hard, there's traces of her blood, skin and hair everywhere, not to mention this horrible smell of fear, she's been running through here so much all her paths are crisscrossed." Beast Boy shivered feeling the primal areas of his brain getting skittish from the smell of this much fear and blood.

"Well find the strongest trace and see if you can find her. Raven see if you can scan for her, Cyborg, Star, let's see who else we can find in this building." Robin growled and ran off, Beast Boy transformed himself into a blood hound and followed his nose.

"Oh god…" Kid Flash murmured as he looked around Robin's room, there was a huge line of blood spatter across the walls and a knife embedded in there too, someone had clearly thrown a knife at Jinx and it had caught an important blood vessel before it hit the wall, she probably hadn't been fast enough to dodge it completely. He edged forward and a metallic tinkling noise caught his ear, he looked down and picked the object up in his hand.

"A lock pick… clever girl." Kid Flash breathed, she'd been trying to get the power inhibitor off and come to Robin's room first to find a lock pick, he couldn't see the inhibitor on the floor and the whole building wasn't on fire so she clearly hadn't gotten it off before she was interrupted. He glanced down to see an unconscious See-more and what remained of what had previously been a large and very expensive looking statue. He looked up, there was blood on the ventilation shaft, he nudge it and it swung aside, all but one of its screws was missing, that was probably Robin's doing. He hopped up and began to crawl along the duct as fast as he could.

A few minutes later he dropped to the floor outside a duct to see Cyborg sitting on Mammoth whilst Starfire cuffed him.

"She's not in there, I've searched all through them." He sighed wearily.

"I don't think she's in the building man, none of my sensors are picking her up. The only life signs are us, Red X and the HIVE five although Gizmo's a few miles away from here, he probably saw us coming and legged it." Cyborg informed him.

"Great, two traitors." Mammoth growled.

"Shut up." Cyborg said kicking him.

"Just because you can't detect her vital signs doesn't mean she's not here." Kid Flash said flatly.

"Well I can't think of any way she could be hiding from my scans." Cyborg sighed as he stood up and Starfire threw Mammoth into the room that had previously contained Jinx and now just contained a few unconscious or bound up members of the HIVE five and not a single piece of unbroken furniture.

"I didn't say she was hiding them." Kid Flash said darkly and ran off to continue his search.

"Oh…" Cyborg said quietly as he realised what Kid Flash had meant.

"Do you think she really could be dead?" Starfire said worriedly.

"I don't know, I hope not but Beast Boy did say that he can smell her blood everywhere, maybe she hid somewhere and…" Cyborg trailed off, the thought of Jinx spending her last few moments clinging onto life in some small dark place in the Tower filled him with cold.

"She will be fine, Jinx is smart." Starfire tried encouragingly.

"I'm going to go check the cameras and see if I can find out where they saw her last and narrow it down from there." Cyborg nodded running off to the security room.

oOoOo

"Any luck?" Robin asked quietly as he appeared behind Cyborg.

"No, Gizmo threw a scrambler before they came in, I've got some of it back but most of it's lost the last time I caught her on camera was her running towards the room we've got those monsters in now." Cyborg said with a growl.

"Beast Boy's got nothing either, every trail he can find just leads right back to where she was at the beginning and with Kid Flash rushing around the building like a madman they're all blurring into one, he says it's like trying to hear a pin drop in the middle of a bomb going off, Kid Flash is just dragging too much air and sent around where he goes for Beast Boy to get anything clear. Not that he's found anything either, last I saw he was pulling Raven's room apart in case she was hiding behind her bookshelves, and Rae and Star are circling the city in case she escaped." Robin sighed wearily.

"I just, I've no footage of her leaving the building, those are the only cameras that were working, I mean maybe just MAYBE she escaped down some pipeline but I've no sign of it." Cyborg sighed scratching his head.

"Wait… where did you say you saw her running to last?" Robin asked suddenly.

"To the security room, the one we had her held in." Cyborg replied.

"And you fitted that room out with everything to make sure no one and nothing could get in and out of there without us knowing, no signals of any kind? No heat, no movement, no electrical signals, no nothing?" Robin asked earnestly.

"Well yeah, but I can see those lot are still in there, I've got the cameras working again." Cyborg said pointing to the screen with them on.

"That's not what I mean, what I'm saying is that your signal jammer essentially blocks out everything that you look for as vital signs and I bet it works around the room not just in it." Robin said looking down at the control panel.

"I- I suppose, but where could she be that close to the room?" Cyborg blinked confused.

"I don't know, just turn it off for a moment." Robin ordered, Cyborg complied and the life signs blipped up on the screen. He counted six.

"There should only be five…" Cyborg breathed rotating the picture.

"She's in the wall." Robin said with a sharp intake of breath, he took off at a run, pulling out his communicator and shouting the news to the whole team. Kid Flash arrived there the instant Robin did with Beast Boy and Cyborg not far behind. Robin ran a hand over the wall, there was a slight dent in the panel but nothing he'd have paid attention to, he shouldered it and it rattled, he shoved it hard on one side and it came loose and stared at the gap, it couldn't be more than eight or nine inches but then Jinx had always been skinny, through the gloom he caught the shine of metal and a streak of pink hair.

"Jinx!" Kid Flash shouted shoving Robin aside and reaching in as far as he could, his fingers wrapped around cold skin as he pulled her forward painfully slowly.

A/N: bwhahaha! That's all yer getting for now boys and girls.


	21. Chapter 21

Jinx sat up cautiously in the bed she'd found herself in, she recognised the room as the medical room in the Titans base and s

Jinx sat up cautiously in the bed she'd found herself in, she recognised the room as the medical room in the Titans base and since she didn't seem to be handcuffed to the bed or tied up with a power inhibitor she wasn't being forced to stay here. She experimentally flexed the fingers on her left hand that seemed to be in a cast, a few sparks shot from her fingers confirming her suspicions about the power inhibitor being gone, she leant back and examined the IV bag hanging next to her, it was just painkillers. With a wince she pulled it out of her arm and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Leaving so soon?" A voice asked quietly from the door, Jinx looked up and Kid Flash looked back at her, his expression hard to read.

"Maybe." She replied noncommittally and stared back at him, after a few moments he gave a deep sigh and walked over to her and stopped a few feet from her bed.

"I don't know whether to hug you or strangle you." He said flatly.

"I'd prefer the first." Jinx suggested hopefully, Kid Flash rolled his eyes at this.

"How could you not tell us what was going to happen? How could you not tell me?" He asked despairingly, Jinx looked away at this.

"It wasn't your fight, plus, none of you believed me anyway." Jinx replied and picked at the stitches in her arm.

"I asked you when you were demanding I take your power inhibitor off to tell me why but you didn't! You could have explained then!" Kid Flash pointed out feeling angry at Jinx's accusation.

"You were too hurt because you thought, reasonably, that I was guilty, I had no right to demand you believe me with no evidence and mess with your mind like that. **And** it wasn't your fight, the HIVE five are my problem, I made my bed when I left them, I always knew this was a possibility I just wasn't expecting them to be so smart about it was all." Jinx shrugged.

"You can't just- it doesn't work like that!" Kid Flash said exasperatedly grabbing a handful of his own hair in frustration.

"He's right." Robin said from the door, he eyed Jinx as he walked to the foot of her bed Jinx eyed him back warily.

"The Titans are a team, I thought you understood that when you came here, if a team member has a problem then the team has a problem. If I ever find out you're holding information like that again I'll make your life hell." Robin glowered at her, Jinx looked taken aback at this.

"You're talking as if I'm still a Titan." Jinx said warily.

"You are. And I'm sorry, if I hadn't been so blindly against you being a Titan then I would have investigated your protests of innocence more and figured out what was going on rather than just accusing you, and I shouldn't have acted the way I did. I could have prevented this whole mess and I apologise." Robin said bowing his head slightly.

"Yeah, he doesn't do the sorry thing much, you might wanna get that in writing." Kid Flash grinned at Jinx.

"You acted the same as I would have if it'd been the other way around." Jinx said slowly not quite believing the situation she'd found herself in.

"Yes, well, I like to think I can do better." Robin smirked at her.

"Hey!" Jinx snapped at the insult.

"Oh god, you two are still going to fight even now aren't you?" Kid Flash said holding his head in his hands.

"Oh that's pretty likely, especially since this seems to be one of the few ways that I can annoy _you_ for a change." Robin grinned at Kid Flash.

"…I'm going to regret this aren't I?" Kid Flash said cautiously.

"Definitely." Jinx smiled poking Kid Flash in the side.

"Anyway, I'll see you two outside later; we've got training in ten minutes. That means you too Jinx, fractured wrist or otherwise." Robin said exiting the room with a wave.

"Slave driver!" Kid Flash shouted after him, with a sigh he flopped down on the bed next to Jinx at stretched lazily as he lay down.

"You're not mad at me anymore then?" Jinx asked softly as she looked down at him.

"You know I can't stay mad at you, one of my few flaws, because as you know I am otherwise perfect." Kid Flash said modestly.

"Egotist." Jinx snorted shoving him out of her way so she could lie down in the bed next to him, the two cuddled up to each other in silence with Kid Flash wrapping an arm around Jinx's shoulders and pulling her close. After a few minutes Kid Flash let out a childish snigger.

"What?" Jinx questioned with a frown.

"Hee hee, I've finally got you in bed with me. I knew you couldn't resist." He giggled childishly, Jinx narrowed her eyes at this and shoved him out of the bed.

"Oops. My arm slipped." She said darkly as she looked down at the laughing boy on the floor.

"Hey, if you and I are cool again does this mean that I can see that racy black underwear you've got again?" Kid Flash asked with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows, Jinx stared at him levelly for a few seconds before replying.

"Sure. You can either see them on me or off me, but not both." She said with a shrug as she laid back on the bed and closed her eyes with a smirk, she could practically hear the cogs turning in Kid Flash's brain.

"Wait wait, so… if I choose to see them on you I can never get you out of them because that would involve seeing them off you?" Kid Flash asked feeling confused.

"Yup." Jinx smirked with her eyes still closed.

"But… if I choose to see them off you… then I never see you wearing them?" Kid Flash said working it out slowly.

"Uh-huh." Jinx nodded.

"But… that's not fair!" He pouted sulkily.

"Good. That'll teach you to ask questions like that you pervert." Jinx smirked at him.

"Jiiiinx!" Kid Flash whined childishly.

"No." Jinx said kicking him before reluctantly getting off the bed and heading for the door.

"So what sort of training programmes does Robin do then?" Jinx asked as she pressed the button to open it.

"Oh you know, the usual. Obstacle courses, specific attack pattern practice, dodging courses, sparring, nothing unusual really." Kid Flash replied with a shrug as they got into the lift to the bottom floor.

"That doesn't sound too complicated." Jinx said feeling a little reassured.

"Don't suppose you'll reconsider the underwear thing then?" Kid Flash asked hopefully.

"No, bad boy." Jinx replied smacking him lightly around the head as they exited the Tower, the others were waiting for them. Robin stepped forward and slapped something on Kid Flash's back.

"A new training exercise today guys, we'll be practicing on the island only and no going inside." Robin announced, Kid Flash spun around desperately trying to see his own back on which a green strip of stuck on fabric fluttered just out of his sight.

"Hey! What did you stick on me?" Kid Flash shouted as he span faster and craned his neck.

"A slight variation on touch football; the game is catch Kid Flash, one person at a time. Beast Boy you can go first." Robin grinned, Beast boy eyed up Kid Flash and turned into a cheetah.

"Eep!" Kid Flash squeaked and disappeared just fast enough to avoid the giant feline that pounced at him.

"And what does this do for Kid Flash exactly?" Jinx questioned as she watched the speedster desperately try and avoid the fastest natural creature on land.

"It trains him to pay attention to where he's going and not just rely on speed but also on-" Robin halted his explanation as the loud clang of Kid Flash cutting his corner around the building too short resulted in his smacking into the side of it, "-also on tactics. Mostly just paying attention though." Robin finished flatly.

"Ow." Kid Flash moaned as he returned to the group without the green tag on his back.

"Jinx, you can go next. No unfair advantages." Robin nodded.

"So I wouldn't be able to flash him then?" Jinx smirked as Kid Flash's eyes lit up.

"I'd rather you didn't." Robin winced at the thought.

"Dude! What are you doing! I could have had boobs! Jinx boobs! Do you know what you've done?" Kid Flash wailed.

"Cheer up man." Beast Boy said with a smirk as he re-attached the tag to Kid Flash's back.

"But- but… Jinx boobs…" Kid Flash whined pitifully.

"Hey Wally," Jinx smirked at him, Kid Flash looked over hoping Jinx had decided to disregard Robin's 'no flash the Kid Flash' rule, "think fast." She grinned as her eyes lit up dangerously pink.

"No fair!" Kid Flash yelped running away just in time to dodge the ensuing blast, Jinx laughed and ran after him.

"So this is it then? The tower's going to be permanently noisy you do realise?" Raven said watching Jinx chase the terrified speedster.

"Yeah," Robin said turning to face her, "But at least we've got someone to keep Kid Flash in line other than me now." He grinned, he vaguely thought he heard a shout of 'hey Kid Flash, rules are meant to be broken remember?' followed by a cheer and then a VERY loud clang but he decided to disregard it as Jinx returned to the team adjusting her clothing with the green tag in hand and a considerably concussed Kid Flash trailing behind her.

"It'll certainly be interesting at any rate." He smirked at Raven.

A/N: well boys and girls, this is the end of this particular fic sad to say, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed as you've made this one of my most popular fics I've got, but never fear I'm not done with the Flinx genre yet, and there's a chance yet of a collaboration between Hotspur who writes the very good fic 'against the wind' (which I highly recommend reading) in the future. Anyway, enough of this, thank you everyone.


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